


You'll be certain in her stare

by PrincessBethoc



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: 18th Century scenes, Backstory, The Old Country, Young Hilda, Young Spellmans, Young Zelda - Freeform, kind of?, more characters will appear - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-02-19 13:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22411471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessBethoc/pseuds/PrincessBethoc
Summary: Three centuries is a long time to hold a grudge. Unless, of course, it's against a Spellman. Perhaps that's the true price of a long life.
Relationships: Ambrose Spellman & Hilda Spellman & Sabrina Spellman & Zelda Spellman, Edward Spellman & Hilda Spellman & Zelda Spellman, Hilda Spellman & Zelda Spellman, Spellman Family - Relationship, Zelda Spellman/Mambo Marie, Zelda Spellman/Mambo Marie LaFleur
Comments: 54
Kudos: 87





	1. A Wet, Miserable Morning

**February 1709**

Zelda Spellman cried into her mother’s chest, Hilda into their father’s. Edward’s arms enveloped Zelda from behind.

The sky seemed to break until the rain pounded down around them. That cold, sharp rain mixed with Zelda’s tears; nobody would ever know she wept, her face was so rainsoaked.

“This was not sanctioned,” Edward said bitterly. “They committed this atrocity without permission from their authorities. They used primitive, obsolete methods and made a mess of it nonetheless.”

“That does not lessen the injustice of the matter,” their father replied. Though he spoke quite calmly, Zelda knew that silent scream, buried deeply beneath the guise of composure. “The fact they will go unpunished only heightens it.”

Where was the logic in this? Where was the basis for this theory? If they were right, they killed you. If they were wrong, the chances were that you may not survive anyway.

“It is too perilous to remain here,” their father said in a whisper. “We must leave.”

“And go where?” snapped their mother. Zelda looked up at her mother in fright, for it was unlike her to speak tersely. “England? We would meet exactly the same fate: death.”

“No,” replied their father patiently. “No, we shall go further than England. I know of a ship bound for the Americas. With enough funds, we could be sure of safe passage. We will go to my family, to the Church of Night, for refuge. Satan knows we ought to have gone with them when it was first suggested.”

With her parents’ gazes so determined, Zelda reached out behind Edward for Hilda’s hand; she squeezed tightly when she found it. A voyage across an ocean to escape this madness was a small price to pay for safety, she supposed. She was only fourteen years of age; in a mere century these most recent years would seem like weeks, no matter the horrors she endured. A bad chapter in an extremely long book.

Edward broke away from his mother and his little sister, and said to their father, “I believe I know how we can obtain the necessary funds.”

Father looked at Edward in surprise. “How?”

“There is a man who would buy our house, a dowry for his daughter’s wedding.”

Mother and Father exchanged glances. “Scour the house of our books and objects, and proceed, Edward. But quickly. We shall meet you in Greenock in a week.”

“Yes, Father.”

A loud sob escaped Hilda. Zelda broke free of her mother’s embrace and went to her, their hands still joined. “We will survive, sister,” Zelda promised her. “We will build our lives where we might be safe.”

Hilda nodded her head tearfully, their father’s hand on her shoulder. “Never leave me, Zelds,” she mumbled.

Zelda took her sister’s face in her hands. “Never.”

Strength, Zelda Spellman learned that day, was an act. To be strong was to pretend she was invincible, even in the face of tragedy and fear, until the world believed it. Until they feared it. Until they respected her. And she would be strong – or feign as much – and she would learn every single scrap of information the worlds offered up to her.

* * *

**Present Day**

“Sabrina, get _up_!” Zelda called to her niece for what felt like the hundredth time. “You have things to be done!”

“Zelds, it’s the school holidays,” Hilda sighed. “Let her be a lazy sixteen-year-old.”

“Did we lie in bed sleeping for the entirety of our adolescence?” snapped Zelda.

“No, but in fairness, when you were Sabrina’s age, you barely slept-”

“I do not talk of it, Hilda, you know that.”

“It wouldn’t kill you to talk about it, you know.”

“You are no authority on what might or might not kill me, sister.”

That was, of course, a lie. There was nobody who knew Zelda better than Hilda did. But to admit that? To embrace it? No. She could never. That would shatter the illusion. The entire world might crumble at her feet.

Zelda stalked out of the kitchen and up the stairs to Sabrina’s bedroom. “Sabrina Spellman, it is ten o’clock!” she declared at the top of her voice. “Get out of bed!”

When Sabrina did not leave her bed, Zelda rolled her eyes and pulled the sheets from her niece’s shoulders. It took less than a second for her to realise something was wrong. “Sabrina?”

“Another half hour, Aunt Zee,” mumbled Sabrina. “I’m just so _tired_.”

“Yes,” Zelda said uncertainly, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “Yes, I can see that.” This was not teenage laziness. Sabrina was pale and drawn, grey marks under her eyes and weakness clear in her limbs. Zelda pulled the sheets back over Sabrina and tucked her in gently. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m tired,” Sabrina repeated. “And cold. And you know when you’ve been swimming and accidentally breathe in the water? That’s what my nose feels like.”

In a mortal, Zelda would have written it off as a common cold. But in Sabrina? If only anything was ever as simple as a common cold when it came to Sabrina. Wishful thinking was no match for past experience. “Have you brought anything up? Coughing up water or a running nose?”

“No,” Sabrina said, huddling into herself. “Just that feeling, it won’t go away.”

“Alright.” Zelda sighed. She got to her feet to fetch another blanket and drape it over Sabrina. “Stay where you are, and I shall see what your Aunt Hilda has up her sleeve to remedy this particular malady.”

Downstairs, Zelda rounded on Hilda. “Something is wrong with Sabrina.”

“Not just a lie-in, then?”

“No. She’s white as a sheet, cold, fatigued,” Zelda said, “and she says her nose feels like she has inhaled water.”

“It could just be a summer cold,” Hilda replied.

“When is it ever just a summer cold with Sabrina?”

“Good point,” she conceded. “But then, do you think she’s been cursed?”

“I don’t know, Hilda. But do you have anything that might make her feel a little better? Warm her up, give her a little more energy?”

“Of course! I’ll bring it up to her.”

“Thank you,” Zelda said sincerely. “I must go to the Academy and check on-”

But suddenly Zelda could not speak. She choked on her words. Gargled on them. It did not go into her lungs – she was not drowning as such – but water bubbled in the back of her throat every time she tried to make a sound. “Zelda?” Hilda asked, obviously startled. But Zelda could only run to the sink and spit water out of her mouth.

Hilda took her by the arm, steering her to a chair. “Sit down,” she said. Zelda nodded. She dared not speak, for she would only choke on water. Hilda patted her back gingerly and set about concocting the remedy she had been about to bring to Sabrina, an air of slight panic about her.

What was this? Her symptoms must surely be connected to Sabrina’s, but what, or who, was responsible? A water demon? But a demon would do this differently; they preferred to kill. A demon would have chosen to drown her outright, not make her gargle water when she attempted to speak.

Hilda rushed away upstairs with a cup for Sabrina. “Ambrose?” Hilda said, alarmed once more. “Are you alright?”

“Where’s Aunt Zee?” he asked tetchily.

“In the kitchen, but she can’t speak right now. She’ll just spit out water. Long story. Short story, actually. Not a clue what’s started it. Come upstairs and we’ll get you a towel.”

“I’ve soaked through every towel in the house!” Hilda started to head upstairs but then stopped. “Has anything happened to you, auntie?”

“No, but Sabrina is unwell too. All cold and tired and weak, poor lamb.”

At that, Zelda heard her nephew use his common sense and cast a protection spell over Hilda, smart enough to realise that Zelda was unable to talk and Sabrina was too exhausted to even sit up in bed. Hilda’s footsteps continued up the stairs, while Ambrose could be heard running down them. As his feet hit the hard floor of the kitchen, there was a shallow but distinct splashing sound that followed him.

He was drenched. Not only was he drenched, but there seemed to be some unseen water source keeping him soaked in perpetuity, his bathrobe dripping water onto the floor. Zelda almost exclaimed in shock, but remembered just in time that she would only choke. “What the Heaven happened to you, auntie?”

Zelda tried to say with her hands that she could not speak, but it was futile. She went to the phone in the hall and fetched a notepad and pen. _I get water in my throat if I try to speak_ , she wrote.

“What? Like drowning?”

_No. Just my throat. Gargling._

“This is madness. I have to get to the library, find something to get us out of this.”

_Not at the Academy. You’ll get everything wet._

Ambrose stared at her. In a moment of dark amusement, she saw on his face an expression she knew she herself wore far too often: exasperation. She had seen him exasperated before, of course, but it was usually directed at someone else. “Come with me,” he suggested. “Bring a mop.”

Zelda raised a solitary eyebrow at him; the very suggestion, that she quite literally mop up after him.

Hilda returned to them. “Okay, Ambrose, love, what happened to you?” she asked.

“I was cold so I decided to take a hot bath,” he said, “and I put my head beneath the water for a moment. At first I thought it strange that my hair didn’t dry at all but I didn’t think anything of it until I got out and tried to get dry. Nothing worked. I even tried an old drying spell. It was no good.”

“What about standing out under the sun?” Hilda suggested.

Zelda rolled her eyes and started to write. _It’s a spell. It must be._

“But who?” Ambrose asked earnestly; he pushed his sopping wet hair away from his face, sprinkling Hilda, who stood next to him. “Who would want to do this? Unless it’s a joke.”

Hilda, however, was gazing blankly at Zelda. “You don’t think any of the students have been messing around with séances, do you?” she said. “The ones staying over the summer break must be bored.”

Zelda frowned as she tried to work out what that meant. But then she realised. _No_ , she wrote down, the word a scribble in her haste. _We would know if there were spirits around._

“But-”

Zelda shook her head vigorously. _No departed spirit could do this_.

“Well, if someone living is doing this, we must find them. I can’t live like this, aunties!” Ambrose protested.

“We will, love, don’t worry,” Hilda assured him with a pat to his arm.

 _Hilda, go to the Ac_ –

She never got to finish that sentence. Her hands trembled as a frozen sweat came over her, prickling at her nerves like pins beneath her skin. Zelda tried to swallow it back, but there was no defeating it. Water spewed out of her mouth onto the table; she coughed harshly as she regurgitated salty water and green debris. It slopped down her chest and dribbled down her chin. Perhaps it was never going to end. She might spend eternity spewing up salt water.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. Zelda was left to stare at the mess of water and vegetation in front of her. “Are you okay, Zelds?!” Hilda asked urgently.

“I’m fine,” Zelda said hoarsely. Her throat was raw, and it stung like it was acid she had just thrown up, but she could speak. “I think the spell is broken.”

Sure enough, when she looked at Ambrose, there was no long water running down his face. He was still wet, but he would dry. Zelda got to her feet and rushed up the stairs to Sabrina.

Her niece sat up in bed, Zelda standing at the bedroom door. “I think Aunt Hilda’s potion worked,” she said, with no wish to hide her relief. “I feel better.”

None of this put Zelda’s mind at ease, however. The fact remained that someone had cast this spell over them in the first place, and though the culprit had lifted it, they were still out there. She knew better than the think for even a moment that this was the end of it. “Get up, get dressed, and go out with Ambrose and put a protection spell on the house,” Zelda ordered Sabrina.

“Yes, Aunt Zelda,” Sabrina said promptly. “What happened to us?”

“I don’t know yet,” Zelda admitted, “but I will find out. In the meantime, be careful of strangers and, for pity’s sake, please don’t make yourself any enemies. Keep yourself out of trouble.”

“Hey!” she answered indignantly. “I didn’t get on the wrong side of anyone! Not recently, anyway!”

“Did I say you had?” Zelda said impatiently. “I just mean that we do not need any other catastrophes at the moment.”

Despite the challenging glare, Sabrina accepted this explanation. “Okay. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Zelda turned on her heel. By the time she reached the kitchen, Ambrose had left to dry himself and get dressed, and Hilda was cleaning up the mess at the table. “I apologise for that, Hilda,” she said.

“No need,” she said cheerfully. “It’s not like you could help it!”

“Ambrose and Sabrina are going to put protection over the house,” said Zelda. “I shall get out of these clothes, and then I will go to the Academy. The boarding students can help me research the magic at play here. I _will_ get to the bottom of this, Hilda, mark my words.”


	2. The Mighty Atlantic

** Now **

Prudence Blackwood sat next to Zelda, flicking through the books of the Academy’s library. “What is this about?” asked Prudence.

“We were incapacitated this morning, Sabrina, Ambrose, and I,” Zelda explained quietly. “I’d like to know what magic caused it. If you come across anything about water magic we have not encountered…”

“Yes,” Prudence said quickly, returning her attention to her books.

If she did not know better, Zelda would have said it was the River Witch, but the water had been salty. It was of the sea. “Concentrate on magics of the sea,” she said. “Ancient magic, possibly.”

Prudence gave her a questioning gaze, but seemed to know she would receive no answers as yet and picked up another book. “Are you sure it wasn’t a demon? A creature of some sort?”

“There was no intent to hurt or kill,” Zelda said. That really did confuse her; why torment them if they were to be brought to no proper harm? “Now I think on it, this was about drowning. I was forced to choke, as if I were trying to speak underwater. Ambrose could not get himself warm and dry, no matter how he tried. Sabrina was left cold, weak, feeling as though she had inhaled water.”

“So a threat rather than an assault?”

“Perhaps.”

“It does seem rather odd, does it not, that whoever is doing this would lift the spell of their own volition?”

Zelda closed her book, having found no answers in its pages, and wondered… _why_? What did it achieve? If this witch or creature was capable of inflicting upon them the sensation of drowning, they were surely capable of drowning them altogether. Why didn’t they? Why were they spared that?

* * *

** 1709 **

Oh, how Zelda wished her mother could stop wailing. How she wished her sister could keep herself from throwing up. How she wished her father and her brother would cease their debates on morality and justice.

And, dear Satan, what Zelda Spellman would have given to sleep through what remained of this never-ending voyage. Having dozed off while reading yet another of Edward’s books, Zelda had been awoken by Hilda vomiting loudly into a pail.

Had she not lost enough, without relinquishing her sanity as well? It seemed increasingly unlikely that she would step onto the next continent with her all of her marbles intact. Indeed, perhaps she ought to consider which of her marbles were necessary, and which she could afford to lose.

“Father?” Zelda called out. “How long have we been aboard this wretched vessel?”

“Twenty-seven days, my daughter,” he told her. There was an apology in his voice that Zelda did not need to hear. He was to blame for none of their turmoil; the world had done this to them. An absurd, ugly world, it seemed to thrive on the misery of all those who walked it.

“So we are halfway there?” she asked.

“Without interruption, yes. There or thereabouts.”

This cabin, though reasonably comfortable, was filled with gloom. Consumed by darkness. Hopelessness. The beginnings of change crept through the constant half-light, ready to smother them as they slept. Zelda never had been one to embrace change. She preferred tradition and the stability it ensured. If not for the sheer necessity of this journey, she might have resisted taking it.

Who was she trying to fool?

She would never have fought against boarding this ship. The pain it would have brought to her parents, while they attempted so valiantly to keep their family safe from harm, would have been too great a price for the avoidance of change. She did not have it in her to do that to them.

When she returned to herself and her surroundings, Zelda found her father’s hand hovering in front of her. “We ought to take some air, Zelda. It would be unwise to keep ourselves cooped up here like this.”

She took her father’s hand; Edward joined them as they left their quarters and made their way up to the ship’s deck.

Though the air was still and the waters calm, the first thing Zelda’s eyes found was the mass of thick, black cloud that lurked on the horizon.

“How are you feeling, sister?” Edward asked of her.

“Better than Hilda, that is for certain,” Zelda said dryly. “I had no clue a girl so small could produce so much vomit.”

It got a laugh out of Father; that did surprise Zelda. She had expected him to have cracked in the past month, but for all he had changed, they might have been crossing the Atlantic for leisure. He always had been stoic, but it rather frightened her that he showed no sorrow at all.

Was that what strength looked like? Was that what she must do, too? She did not know that she was capable. She could feign it, perhaps, but only for so long. Unlike her father, her masks slipped away if worn for too long. But her weeping had already been done, she remembered. Now she must follow her father’s example, for her mother and her siblings needed them both this way: strong, reliable, unshaken.

Zelda looked up at Edward; tears rolled silently down his cheeks while he gazed out into the open ocean. There was so little she could say that might relieve such profound anguish. In fact, she rather suspected it would never entirely leave any of them for as long they lived.

Knowing of no other way to comfort him, Zelda reached out for her elder brother’s hand and held on tightly. He looked down to her with a tearful smile. “My dear, dear sister,” he said. “You shall be a great woman.”

“I should hope so!” Zelda replied indignantly. “My left eye has developed a twitch from the number of your books I have read in these past weeks!”

Edward shook his head slightly. “So fixated are you upon becoming a learned witch that you go blind to your own nature. One day, Zelda, you will understand what I mean.”

Father came to stand behind them, his hands falling upon a shoulder apiece. Those dark clouds swirled like smoke, poisonous smoke, and they sailed straight towards it. “Brace yourselves, children,” said their father, “for a long and tempestuous night awaits us.”

* * *

** Now **

Zelda sat down to supper with her family that evening. Nothing else untoward had happened to any of them, but she was still without answers. She and Prudence had found accounts of similar occurrences – witches tormenting a body with water – but it required uncommon power and skills unlikely to have been acquired anywhere around here. It would make sense for sea magic to be learned at the sea, which lay many miles from Greendale.

For tonight, the house was protected. That was the most important thing. Within these walls, they were as safe as they could possibly be.

“We found allusions to an ancient type of sea magic,” Zelda explained to Hilda, Sabrina and Ambrose over their food. “Not practiced here for many, many years. Scholars believe it was lost when witches left the coastlines of Britain and Ireland for the New World and migrated inland. Of course, that’s not to say that witches on the other side of the Atlantic don’t still learn about it.”

Hilda caught Zelda’s eye. They, after all, had been those witches. The only difference was that they made that journey later than most who did in the decades before them. Had they remained where they were, they most likely would have learned this kind of magic. However, when they arrived here, the family had been Heaven bent on integrating itself with those who gave them a new home. They never did touch on such skills. They learned the magic of the people who adopted their family.

“So we’re looking for a witch or warlock who has spent significant periods of time in Britain or Ireland,” Ambrose surmised heavily. “That could be anyone. It could be you or I, aunties!” he added, clearly frustrated.

“I know,” Hilda said. “It doesn’t narrow it down much.”

“Do you remember anyone from the Old Country who might wish harm upon us?” asked Ambrose.

“No, love, everyone we knew back then fled elsewhere,” Hilda explained. “Most of them here, in America, in fact.”

“Or they’re dead,” Zelda chipped in, unable to keep the darkness from her tone.

“But why, Aunt Hilda?” asked Sabrina. “Why did they leave?”

“Mortals were rather hysterical about witches back then,” Zelda said. “The worst started in the sixteenth century, after the king’s ship encountered storms. He accused several people of interfering with his voyage through witchcraft, and developed an obsession with hunting witches. Many, both witches and wrongly accused mortals, were tortured and executed.”

“That’s horrible,” Sabrina said distastefully. “And besides, what if it was just bad weather and witches had nothing to do with it?!”

“That was probably the case, darling,” sighed Hilda. “After that, though, things got out of hand. Most of our own family left when they began systematically hunting us down. It died out over time, but every so often, mortals would take matters into their own hands, especially out in the countryside. That was why we – your father, Zelda and I – came here, in fact.”

Zelda shot Hilda a warning look, lest she say too much.

“What happened?” Ambrose said, ignoring his meal completely now. It was not often these days that he happened upon a new piece of his family’s history.

Zelda spoke before Hilda got the chance to. “A girl was killed,” she said quickly. “The mortals forced her to take something called the swimming test. It was simple but completely baseless. By the time this incident occurred it was a method denounced by most mortals, but for the most rural and paranoid. They tied a rope to you and threw you into the nearest body of water. If you floated, you were a witch. If you sank, you were mortal, and they dragged you back safely to shore.”

“And this girl floated?” Sabrina said.

“No, she sank,” Zelda said. “When they tried to pull her back, the rope became snagged on rocks and broke. She was lost to the…” But as she said it, as she remembered watching that girl disappear, her voice faltered for only a moment. “…lost to the sea.”

When she looked around at her nephew, she found him staring intently at her. “Maybe that has something to do with what happened to us this morning,” he said eagerly. “Perhaps a relative of hers, or a friend, angry about her death?”

“Impossible,” Zelda said shortly.

“But why is it impossible, Aunt Zee?” Sabrina asked.

Zelda glanced hesitantly at Hilda, trying to prompt her to steer the conversation away from such an uncomfortable subject. “We were the only witches for miles around,” Hilda said. “Her family couldn’t have cursed us.”

“But what about the people who basically _murdered_ a girl?!” Sabrina demanded furiously. “What happened to them? Were they punished?”

“No,” Zelda said. “They said the girl was swimming in the sea and was taken by the tide. The authorities did not investigate the case; it was known to happen every once in a while.”

There was a finality in her tone, put there deliberately, that sent her sister, niece and nephew back to their meals without another word on the matter.

* * *

** 1709 **

Thrown sideways from her bed, Zelda crashed onto the wooden floor below. Father had been right when he had warned her of a long night, she thought bitterly. The chances of getting any sleep at all were negligible.

Across the room, Hilda was yet again retching the contents of her stomach into a bucket. Resigned to the fact she would not get any rest regardless, Zelda felt her way through the darkness to her sister with her flask of water. She sat down on the floor, took off the lid and passed it into Hilda’s hand. “You must stay hydrated, sister, or you will fall ill,” she said, gently rubbing Hilda’s back.

Everyone was awake. In this rage of tide and winds, there was no hope of peace. They could only brave the storm and pick themselves back up when it was finally over. It was all anyone could ever do, she decided, when there was no way to change their fate.

Moonlight broke through the clouds once in a while. In its dim light, Zelda saw her parents hold one another tightly. Edward sat on his bed with a bucket between his knees; he, too, was suffering with seasickness, though not as horrifically as Hilda. When the waters were calm, he was alright. It was only on nights like this one that he succumbed to it.

“All storms pass,” Zelda reminded her family, careful to make them hear her confidence. “Or else, we pass through every storm.”

She stared over at her mother, pale and ghostly, a shadow of the witch who had left those shores a month before. Forced to watch her son and daughters suffer, with no means with which she could cure them, tormented her. Had Edward and Hilda been so sick at home, Mother would have been able to give them remedies to relieve them almost instantly. But here, on a ship filled with mortals and with limited resources at hand? Zelda knew she did not dare. That helplessness, though, was a look she was unaccustomed to seeing about her mother.

To Zelda’s surprise, the tiniest of smiles broke across her mother’s lips. That was Zelda Spellman’s first encounter with profound and silent gratitude.


	3. The Spell of the Hanging Stone

** Now **

There was never a time Zelda was more thankful for her nephew and his incredible mind. He lived in books, combing through those pages for pieces of information unknown to him. At this point, Zelda thought those must be few and far between, and yet every day he seemed to learn something new. She had once been like him, living to answer questions, but never with the same intensity.

“Auntie Zee!” he called as he ran down the stairs of the Spellman house. “I think I’ve found the spell used on you the other morning. I knew I’d read about it somewhere.”

He sat down at the kitchen table and put the book down in front of her. She picked it up and stared at the page he left open for her. “Of course,” she whispered. “The Hanging Stone. As the story goes, a witch was to be hanged at the Hanging Stone, overlooking the sea. As the men began to put the noose around her neck, they choked on the sea, and she escaped. I always thought it was just an old folk tale the mortals liked to tell.”

“Apparently, it is true,” Ambrose said. “It’s documented in our literature, but not in mortal writing.”

“I don’t understand,” Zelda admitted. “This spell requires the sea to be in sight, and the victim to be nearby; we’re nowhere near the ocean.” She pointed at the page, showing Ambrose something she thought he must surely have missed.

“Perhaps, but it doesn’t specify that the sea must be in its natural place.”

“Are you trying to tell me that someone filled a jar with seawater so they could choke me with it?” asked Zelda.

“It’s possible.”

Zelda read through the spell again. It would require uncommon power to carry it out, particularly away from the coastline. There was nobody she could recall with both the skill and the motive. Of course there were those who would do it, but none would have the means. This needed magical prowess, yes, but also the common sense to realise that the water need not lie on its bed. That was something many powerful witches lacked, common sense.

She passed the book back to Ambrose. “It would explain what happened to me, but what about you and Sabrina?” she pointed out. “Those must have been entirely different spells.”

“I think we are dealing with more than one witch,” he said. “If this _is_ the work of one person, they are formidable.”

“Are you implying I am not?”

Ambrose did not falter under Zelda’s stare, but he did give a slight smirk. “Not at all, auntie. I’m just saying you may have found your match.”

“Then I shall outmatch them.”

“No, _we_ will,” he said. “You can’t deal with whatever this is alone, Auntie Zee. For all we know, we might be outnumbered.”

“Ambrose, you possess the wit of ten men and your Aunt Hilda kills people with food,” Zelda said wearily. “Outnumbered shouldn’t be a problem. If need be, we’ll invite them to dinner and let Hilda have her way with them.”

It did not at all surprise her to see Ambrose’s expression of disbelief, mostly because she could not quite believe it herself. Inviting them to dinner would not work, and Zelda knew that; she wanted Ambrose to believe there was a Plan B, despite nobody having yet devised a Plan A.

“Keep this to yourself for the moment, Ambrose,” Zelda said firmly. “Sabrina will only play detective and antagonise the situation, and Hilda is an information casualty waiting to happen.”

Ambrose gave a casual salute as he flicked through his book, his attention drawn deep into its pages again.

* * *

** 1709 **

In her own way, Zelda Spellman was a deeply affectionate girl. Though never one to say the words aloud – she took after her father in that respect – those she loved rarely doubted that she did. Perhaps that was why she never learned to say it; why would she ever need to?

In the years to come, she would find herself asking the same question she asked of herself at fourteen: “Who takes care of me?”

If she were to think of it fairly, Edward had looked after her as best he could. So did her parents, even her younger sister to an extent. The problem she was faced with now was that they had boarded this ship with holes in their hearts, and Zelda did not. She felt it, and often she wished she didn’t, but they wore it better. It played in their eyes and their words, and she saw living, breathing people. When she looked at her reflection, she rather thought she didn’t seem to care at all. Was that what they saw?

Maybe that was the cost of being strong. Nobody saw her heart break, and therefore nobody felt the need to take care of her like she cared for them.

Even her father, who had, only two weeks ago, behaved like they were travelling at leisure, was beginning to lose his stoicism. There were nights Zelda could hear a sniffing, quiet and stifled, of a man who could only weep in the dark. The first night it had happened – four nights ago – she had wondered what the sound was, for she had never heard it before.

And so, mere weeks from the shores of America, Zelda was the only member of the family who could present herself as whole.

While her parents and brother took some air above deck before dinner, Zelda sat with her pale sister. Unable to keep her food down half the time, she was beginning to lose weight. There were days that bread was the only thing Hilda could eat without throwing it back up. In her short respite on calmer seas, she played with the figurines of animals passed down through the Spellman children by their parents. She held the well-worn figures of a rabbit and a red squirrel, smiling a little forlornly down on them. Zelda, in the knowledge that there was little she could do about that sadness, returned to her reading.

“Zelda?” Hilda asked. The caution in her tone was rather ominous.

“Yes?” Zelda said, looking up from another of Edward’s books.

“What will we do?”

“What do you mean?”

“When we reach Father’s family. What will it be like?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Zelda. She closed the book and set it down beside her on her bed. “I imagine it would not be so different from what we had before. It is a coven, after all.”

Hilda gazed at her thoughtfully. “It’ll be strange to have all of Father’s family around.”

Zelda had not thought about that. She had been so used to their little family, just her, her siblings and her parents. She had never known anything different. “Do you know, I’m not sure that I have met a single one of them,” she said. “They left before we were born.”

“What if they don’t like us?”

“You set a great deal of store on being liked, Hilda,” she sighed. “There are certain people who shouldn’t like you at all. If they hate you, you are probably doing something right.” Hilda, though, was only ten years old. That notion was sure to go over her head; it would be of no comfort to a girl so unwise to the world. “They will like you.”

“How do you know?”

“As infuriating as you are capable of being, sister, it is very difficult _not_ to like you.”

Hilda gave a tired smile. “I like you, too.”

Zelda got to her feet and ignored that remark. Accepting compliments beyond “you look nice” was awkward. “You should get some sleep,” she told her sister sternly, but not unkindly. “I shall wake you before dinner.”

Her sister nodded her head and lay down; Zelda pulled the blankets over her and moved her blonde locks from her white face. “Are they going to be alright?” she whispered into the rough blanket.

There was no need to ask who Hilda meant by “they.”

“I couldn’t tell you, sister,” said Zelda. “We must be strong for them. That will help.”

“I don’t know how to be strong.”

Zelda allowed Hilda a smile, a softness so unlike her usual demeanour, and rubbed her arm. “You already are. Now, sleep.”

* * *

** Now **

The Academy, Zelda had learned, was often a stressful place. Even with the coven halfway annihilated, there were still enough antics to make Zelda wonder if she had the patience for this. Most of them were teenagers. Living with one teenager was eventful enough. To leave that teenager, Sabrina Spellman, Magnet for Trouble, to be in charge of more teenagers was not something Zelda would have thought of volunteering for.

But here she was, trying to look after the ones with no family left to go to, while they were forced to live in their school.

So when Sabrina ran into the Academy, Theo Putnam at her back, Zelda had to resist the urge to push them back out the door and take her moment of peace. “What is it now?” she demanded brusquely.

“You need to come home,” Sabrina said urgently. “Or Ambrose, or Aunt Hilda-”

“What has happened?”

“Your house, Ms. Spellman,” Theo eventually said. Zelda looked to him, thankful that he at least was collected enough to give an explanation. “Your house is flooded. Sabrina tried to get rid of the water but it won’t go.”

“You two, go to the library and get Ambrose,” Zelda ordered them. “I’ll get Hilda. None of you go into that house alone. Do you understand?”

Theo, while clearly puzzled, nodded; he knew better than to question her. Sabrina, though, opened her mouth and said, “Why?”

“Do I make myself clear?” She put more authority into it this time.

With Theo’s hand on her arm, Sabrina nodded her head and jogged off to the library; Zelda turned and stalked her way through to the dining hall, where she found Hilda cheerfully feeding the students.

She pulled Hilda aside. “The house has been flooded,” she said. “I need you to come with us to find out what on Earth is going on.”

Hilda frowned. “Do you think it’s related to what happened the other morning?” she asked.

“I do,” she said, “and I do not want Sabrina or Ambrose to try and deal with it. Not alone, at least.”

“Okey-doke!” Hilda said bracingly.

Zelda turned to Nick Scratch and Prudence Blackwood. “I’m leaving you two in charge while we’re away. Please, no disasters.”

The two nodded and took their meals.

Once at the Spellman house, it was clear that this was no earthly flood. Low waves lapped across the front porch into the front door, with no apparent source. Sabrina, Ambrose and Theo stood at the bottom of the steps, watching on. “I’ve tried everything I know, aunties,” Ambrose said slightly desperately. Zelda did not doubt it, and there was little she could do that Ambrose would not have already attempted.

“Stay here,” she said to Sabrina, Ambrose and Theo.

She quietly beckoned Hilda to follow her; what if there was someone unwelcome inside? They had to check before allowing their family and mortal friends back through that door.

Inside, the water was not high. It rolled over their feet like they stood on the beach, just at the waterline. The kitchen and the parlour were the same. However, when they approached the stairs down to the mortuary, the fifth step down was dry, with no water anywhere below. “Maybe there’s someone down there,” whispered Hilda.

They checked. They crept down the stairs, into the silent, empty mortuary. They searched in all the obvious hiding places, but there was nobody down here.

Back on the ground floor, they proceeded up the stairs. They, too, were dry. The entire upper floor was dry. Every room in the house was empty, but for Zelda and Hilda. “I don’t understand,” Hilda said, relief spread thinly over her face. “If there’s no-one here, who’s flooding the place? And why?”

“Questions I cannot answer, Hilda,” said Zelda. She went from Ambrose’s bedroom to Sabrina’s double checking that there truly was no intruder. From Sabrina’s room, she went to her own. It was empty too. Seemingly untouched, like the rest of the house – if you ignored the waves rolling across the floor below.

Something was off, though. There was something Zelda could not name that was not as it was when she left this morning. She turned around on the spot, surveying her surroundings carefully. Both beds were still made up, and all their belongings were exactly where they were this morning. She spotted Ambrose, Sabrina and Theo out the window, and crossed the room to tell them it was safe to come inside.

As she opened the window, she realised what had changed. On the sill stood wooden figures. A horse, a dog, a man, a rabbit, a red squirrel, coarsely carved by modern standards but still pretty, with peeling paint. She took the rabbit and the squirrel between her fingers, examining them closely. They were no different from when she was a child. Gathering them up in her hands, she opened the window and called out, “You can come inside now!”

They stood and stared ahead for a moment, until Theo looked up at her. “The water’s gone, Ms. Spellman!” he shouted; there was a hint of alarm in his voice. “It just…just stopped!”

Sabrina and Ambrose glanced at each other and then up at their aunt.

Zelda turned to Hilda and opened her grasp on the old toys. Hilda’s mouth fell open. “They were in the box,” she said, sounding quite spooked. “I swear, Zelda, they were in the box with everything-”

“I know. I believe you.” She carefully put them into her sister’s hands and looked back out of the window. Sabrina, Theo and Ambrose had got their act together and come indoors. Zelda searched the landscape for any clue, but found nothing.

It was only as she began to turn her back that the figure of a woman in a deep blue hooded cloak, walking away from the house, caught her eye. Zelda ran past Hilda and down the stairs, but when she got to the front porch, the woman had vanished.

“Aunt Zee?” Sabrina’s voice rang through the air. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Zelda said, exhaling sharply. “Yes. I thought I saw something, but I must have been mistaken.”


	4. Should Have Been Loved

** June 1709 **

There was something about this place Zelda could not come to terms with. It was not the people – they could not have given them a warmer or more sincere welcome – but there was something amiss.

She found herself waking in the night, watching the moon out her bedroom window. It looked different here. Further away. That was nonsense, of course, and Zelda knew it. However, she was beginning to find that so many of her feelings these days could be written off as nonsense. To feel lost here was absurd; she had family and community, arguably in greater swathes than she had them before.

That piece was always going to be missing, wasn’t it? A hole that might never be filled. There were days wondered what would have happened had the remained, but there was no simple answer to that. They may never have been discovered or, as her mother had pointed out, they might have met the same end as that poor child.

Zelda, unknown to her family, had crept out of bed the night it happened. In the darkness she had stumbled down to the shore and called for her, in the vain hope that she might have survived. Wading through the water, her bones had turned to ice while she desperately felt through the water for a body. For anything that might lead her to something more or less than tragedy. She had thought about using magic to aid her but, given what had only just happened to the youngest witch for miles around, deemed it unwise.

Perhaps if they had stayed, she would never have been able to accept it as it was. Would she have gone down to the sea every night? Would she have driven herself mad? Lost her mind to the memory of what had been taken from her?

She had it in her to become obsessive, especially over a thing like this.

It was safer here, she told herself every day. They were not alone here. This was a town, where mortals could not become loose cannons and act without warrant. They were answerable to more than their False God where their actions could be seen by something more sentient than the hills and the seas.

But how she missed home. The roll of the sea and the laughing of her siblings…they seldom laughed now. The full weight of their ordeal had hit them all squarely in the chest.

“Zelda,” her mother said, “come and help me hang the laundry, please.”

Without argument, Zelda followed her mother out to the front yard and began to pin the towels and sheets to the line. She said nothing. In all honesty, she was never quite sure what she _could_ say to her mother. It was like walking on the thinnest sheet of ice, and one missed step might cause an almighty earthquake.

“How is your sister?” asked Mother. Zelda stared at her for a moment. Not once, in all of this, had her mother asked about her oldest daughter’s welfare. It was always Hilda or Edward she asked after. Did she think Zelda was indifferent to the pain?

“She gets better every day,” replied Zelda. It was true. There was a resilience in Hilda that left her in awe. Not only did she get by, but she got by with a smile. “She looks healthier, too. It turns out keeping your food down longer than five minutes does wonders for the human body.”

“Yes, she suffered on that boat, the poor pet,” said Mother.

It took a great deal of effort on Zelda’s part to keep her eyes from rolling skywards. She knew it was best to say nothing in reply; it would only start an argument, and Father would always side with his wife, whether or not she was in the right.

Time had become quite an abstract feeling to Zelda when it was spent with her mother. There were days that passed so quickly she could barely remember them at all, and there were days – like this one – that seemed to last for weeks on end. A voice in the back of her head warned her that she could not criticise her mother, especially now she had lost everything.

But she had not lost everything, had she? She had three children. Her husband. Her power. Her life. And sometimes Zelda could not squash the notion that her mother would rather it was she who had drowned. The bond they had once shared was gone. Disintegrated into nothing. There was no animosity between them; sometimes Zelda wished there was. It would at least have been an emotion her mother felt when she put eyes upon her daughter. As it was, Zelda believed Mother would be completely indifferent if she were to disappear off the face of the planet.

“Do you miss home?” Zelda asked her mother.

“I do. I miss the land. This place seems quite bare.”

“There are woods not far from here.”

“I know. I meant that it lacks something else. A knowledge, perhaps. This is a relatively new country, when you compare its history.”

“But a clean slate,” Zelda said. “It is easier to build upon new ground.”

“I would rather I had my dusty old slate.”

Mother walked away with the empty laundry basket, leaving Zelda to stand alone.

* * *

** Now **

Darkness crept around that night, silent and heavy. Sabrina had gone out to the movies with Harvey, Roz and Theo; Ambrose was in the Academy library again. Hilda and Zelda, well, they sat in the kitchen, not quite sure what to say to one another. To see those toys again had completely knocked Zelda off her feet, and she was sure Hilda felt the same.

“I don’t understand,” Hilda said. It was the fourth time in as many hours she had said that without prompt. “I don’t get it, Zelds. Nobody has had those things out for…well, since we came here. I don’t think Ambrose or Sabrina even know they exist.”

“They have never seen them before,” Zelda said. “And even if they had, they wouldn’t…”

“But then who would?”

Zelda stared down at the floor. She was frightened. This should not have happened, any of it. Was someone trying to remind them they were refugees? Was it someone from their youth, reminding them what they left behind? A relative? An old acquaintance? Had they hurt someone who now sought retaliation?

But who? The only witches for miles around besides them were a couple who lived on the tiny island to the west. Zelda only vaguely remembered them, as she had only met them on a handful of occasions as a child. Everyone else from their community had fled decades before. She couldn’t see those two doing this – why would they? The choice to remain had been theirs, after all.

“They have a thing about water, don’t they?” said Hilda.

“I think they must specialise in sea magic,” Zelda replied. “These spells are not easy to accomplish without a full knowledge of the forces involved.”

“Do you know anyone who’d be capable?”

“No,” she admitted. “No, I can’t think of anyone with those kinds of skills. But whoever it is, they are trying to get our attention.” She glanced hesitantly at her sister.

“What?”

“We might be able to summon them. If they are waiting on a summons…”

“They’ll hear it.” Hilda got to her feet. “We could try it.”

“And if they attack?”

To that, Zelda had no sensible answer. It was obvious that they were either outnumbered or were facing an individual with exceptional power. The only thing she could think of was to enlist Ambrose and Sabrina, but she would rather not involve them. There were certain things they were better not to know, and Zelda could sense that this was one of those things.

It seemed Hilda had no answer, either; she leaned back into the wall. “I suppose we could just risk it,” she suggested quietly. “If the worst comes to the worst, we could summon Ambrose and Sabrina.”

Zelda did not like the idea, but it was the only one they had, and they could not very well keep doing nothing. So she took Hilda’s hands in hers. “We summon thee,” she said loudly, “the person or persons who besiege the Spellman family home. We summon thee and ask for peace.”

The sound of running water startled Zelda; she looked around to see that the tap was turned on, the water gushing mercilessly against the metal sink. “What was that ab-”

“Sshh!” Zelda hushed her sister.

They stood together without a word, watching and waiting. Zelda was sure there was something more to come.

She was right. Something, or someone, clattered above their heads in the bedroom. Zelda took Hilda by the hand and led her forth up the stairs. Footsteps resounded from the bedroom, as if someone moved with haste across the room. One hand in Hilda’s, one cautiously pushing open the door, Zelda switched the light on. The person whose footfalls they had heard was gone, but a box lay open in the middle of the floor, its contents wildly scattered. She crouched down and took the woollen blanket that now lay on the floor in her hand. Hilda got on her hands and knees and gathered up the toy figures, the doll, and the marbles that had been knocked out of the box.

It was all over the place. Zelda leaned over and grabbed the dress and the shoes back from the foot of her bed. She had forgotten how small that dress was; she swallowed the lump in her throat and, with great care, folded it neatly and placed the little shoes on top.

“Zelda?”

Her head jerked up to find Hilda staring cautiously at her. Zelda regained her composure and folded up the blanket, replacing it with the dress and shoes into their small mahogany chest. “I think we should put this elsewhere,” she said shortly, snapping the box lid closed. “And let’s not summon strangers again.”

The smile Hilda gave her in that moment was a little too sad, a little too knowing, for Zelda’s liking. She had never enjoyed the experience of having her sister search her soul.

* * *

** December 1710 **

Winter here, as Zelda had discovered the year before, could be as harsh as the ones she knew in the old country. The weather, however, was nothing next to the cold in that house. Her parents had barely spoken to one another in the last month, for reasons unknown to their children. Edward had the good sense to spend most of his time studying at the Academy; Zelda sometimes joined him, but more often than not, Mother demanded she remained at the house, occupying her sister.

Father, though never quite the same man again, had recovered quite well in the past year. He had managed to piece himself back together with his teaching and his studying.

Mother had two personae. One she reserved for Edward and Hilda, warm and loving, and one for Zelda (and now, it seemed, Father), which involved a distinct detachment for which Zelda could not find a reasonable explanation.

On one rare evening when Father had taken her with him to finish some work at the Academy, Zelda realised there was actually very little work to be done. He was here only so he was not in the house, and he had taken her for the same reason. Feeling this in itself was license enough to ask, she said, “Why is Mother so distant with us?”

Father set his papers down onto his desk. “You must not tell your brother and sister. Not yet.”

“Of course.”

“Your mother is pregnant.”

“Oh.” That was not the answer she was expecting. “Isn’t she happy about that?”

“Not particularly,” admitted Father. “She feels she has endured enough.”

“But she will have another child at the end of it,” Zelda said fairly. “That must make her happy.”

“Perhaps it will, in the fullness of time. For now, however, she resents me for my elation at the prospect of a new baby.”

It made no sense to Zelda for Mother to be anything less than overjoyed about having a baby. “That would account for her coldness towards you,” she said carefully, “but what about me?”

The expression upon her father’s face rather alarmed Zelda. “She does love you,” he told her quietly. “You must understand that.”

“Then why does she appear so indifferent? It has been like this since we left.”

“I know,” he sighed. “You should have been loved, my darling daughter. You should feel loved. I am so sorry that your mother has treated you like this.”

“But why, Father? What did I do to make her withhold her love?”

“The thing about your mother is that she targets her pain at others. I believe that, in her mind, you are the one who might have found a way to change what happened. You and I both know that is not true,” he added quickly; Zelda had opened her mouth to defend herself. “There was nothing any of us could have done, let alone a child such as yourself. And then when we left, you were so magnificent, Zelda, I do not think we could have kept our sanity without you. Your mother begrudges that. She was accustomed to being the backbone of the family, and then suddenly she was broken, and you held us all together during such a horrific time. Your mother was so grateful at first, but when she continued to need your assistance, she began to resent having you take her place. It does not help that Hilda would sooner rely upon you than her, either.”

“Perhaps if she were reliable, we would rely upon her,” she snapped. “Hilda needs sensible advice, not the mollycoddling she gets from Mother.”

Father did not contradict her. Instead, he wore an unreadable mask of diplomacy. “Be that as it may, Zelda, your mother feels redundant next to you. However, it is not your fault. This is a problem she needs to solve, not you, as I have told her time and again.”

“I did not mean to take anything from her,” said Zelda. “All I wanted was to try and help my family.”

“And you were brilliant. You _are_ brilliant.”

Zelda smiled tearfully until the realisation of her own position crept up on her. “But she does not want me. My mother does not want me.”

“On the contrary, she needs you.”

“It is not the same thing,” argued Zelda. “Needing someone and wanting them are completely different.”

Her father let out a heavy sigh. “I understand,” he said. “I do. She does not make life easy for you. The only advice I can give is to brush it off and stand tall as you are, without apology.” He got to his feet and pulled a small mahogany chest from under his desk. “And now, to make all our lives a little more bearable now that you mother is pregnant, I would like you to take this and put the dress, shoes, blanket and toys from Hilda’s bottom drawer inside. Put it in your closet, out of your mother’s sight.”

“Yes, Father,” she said. She took the box.

He smiled down at her. “My girl,” he sighed. “My left hand.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead and, if only for a moment, Zelda was loved.


	5. Swallowed by a Vicious, Vengeful Sea

** Now **

Sleep was a sheer impossibility. How could Zelda sleep with her family under such threat? Perhaps this was how her parents had once been, sleepless and anxious every night. Maybe they would have known what this was about. Failing that, they might have been able to tell her how to stop it. Or Edward – how she longed to have Edward here with her. His insight might have brought an entirely new light to the predicament.

But there was no point on wishing for what was already gone.

Instead, she was here, stuck as she was as a teenager: a terrified insomniac, even if for new reasons. The fear that she could never be loved in her own right if her own mother could not love her had waned over time – though it had reared its head on occasion. Now, her fear was that everything she loved was about to be destroyed by a force she could not see.

A glass of whiskey in her hand, she sat down in a chair in the parlour. She would read if she had the head to manage it, but she knew she would lose her place a dozen words in.

They had come when they were summoned. It had worked, even if the person had decided to ransack the bedroom rather than show their face. They had done the one thing that would have drawn her attention without having to reveal their identity.

That box had barely seen the light of day since their mother’s final pregnancy; that child had not inherited their old belongings. Their youngest brother had been given new things from their new country. It was not he who terrorised his family; they might have drifted apart in his determination to wander the world, but they were never estranged. She had last seen him at Edward and Diana’s funeral, and they had parted on good terms. He still wrote from time to time, from wherever he happened to be.

“Auntie?” a voice said gently from the door. She looked up to see Ambrose at the parlour door. “I thought I heard someone tiptoeing around. In the circumstances, I thought it best to investigate.”

“Just me,” Zelda replied. She tried to smile but feared it looked like a grimace.

“Can’t sleep?”

“No,” she sighed. “No, I can’t. Not with all this going on.”

“It will come to a head,” he assured her as he sat down in the chair opposite. “These things always do.”

“I suspect that was meant to be comforting, but it sounds more like a threat.”

Ambrose smiled grimly. “Nothing lasts forever, Auntie Zee.”

“Oh, I know that all too well.” There was something about Ambrose’s face at that moment that urged Zelda to trust him, uncertain as she was to do so. “When we first came here, when I was a teenager,” she said, “my mother was…well, she was not herself. She resented me for my role, I think.”

“Your role?”

“The girl who drowned, the one I told you about? I tried to save her, and I failed.”

“You were only a child yourself, auntie.”

“And then when we got here and our mother was…unreliable, Hilda began to lean more on me than her, and she begrudged me that, too.”

“Is that why you’re so…” Ambrose began to ask, but he seemed to think better of it.

“So what, Ambrose?”

“Well,” he said apprehensively, “you are brilliant with children. And then when they hit fourteen, fifteen, bam. You don’t know how to show them emotion anymore.”

Zelda drained her glass. She had never realised that anyone, besides Hilda, noticed the trouble she had when Sabrina reached that age. It was never just Sabrina being her teenage self; how could she show her niece affection when her own mother had withdrawn it from her at that age? She never learned how to approach children of that age. Even after her mother had warmed to her again, it never became clear.

“I don’t mean to offend you,” he said quickly.

She sighed. “I’m not offended, Ambrose. I just had no idea you saw it.”

“I was locked up in this house with you and Sabrina for sixteen years. There would be something wrong with me if I didn’t see it.”

It was unsettling. She had never seen herself as being anything like her mother, and yet, had she not made similar mistakes? Of course, she did not resent Sabrina or Ambrose in any way, but she struggled to relate to them how they were loved. “I don’t mean to appear detached from you all,” she said.

“We know that. We know from your actions that you love your family.”

It drew a smile from Zelda, to know that she was somewhat understood. It was a rare feeling. The more she lived, the more she endured, the less it seemed those around her saw who she was. Of her siblings, Hilda did know her best, but there were things even she struggled to comprehend.

Ambrose leaned forwards. “I think there are things for which you need to forgive yourself,” he said. “What happened to that little girl was not your fault. No matter what your mother thought, it was never down to you to save her. If your mother said she felt like she was surplus to requirements, that is not your fault. You should never have been in a position where Auntie Hilda relied upon you like that. That is on your parents, not you.”

He had no idea, did he? How could he know about the nights she had spent awake, wondering how she could be better?

Maybe if she pushed Hilda away, Mother would love her again. Maybe if she helped out more in the house, Mother would love her again. Maybe if she completely stepped back from helping anyone, Mother would love her again. Maybe if she dutifully took her Dark Baptism, Mother would love her again. Maybe if she excelled at the Academy, Mother would love her again.

And now Mother loves her again, is it real? Does Mother love her, or has Father only told her to pretend so as to spare her feelings? Will it all disappear if she makes even the most honest mistake?

But Ambrose meant well. Zelda knew that. She stood up and, in a brief moment of affection, touched her nephew’s cheek. “Goodnight, Ambrose.”

“Goodnight, auntie.”

* * *

** February 1709 **

“No!” shouted Mother. “Please! She can’t swim!” Father held her by her arms to prevent her from doing anything rash and getting herself killed. Hilda leaned into Edward’s side.

To expect the mortals to listen was unwise. They completely ignored her pleas.

Zelda watched from the rocks while they threw the girl, only seven years old, into the cold sea, a rope around her tiny waist. She sunk like lead, as everyone except those foolish mortals knew she would. “Pull her back!” yelled one of the men. They obeyed; the rope went taut as they hauled backwards to retrieve their victim.

Why was this taking so long? She was tiny. There were bigger fish than her in these waters; they should have had her standing safely on the shore by now.

And then, with no warning, the rope went slack.

“No, no, no, no!” Zelda whispered frantically. “Please, no!”

The mortals looked at one another blankly. “Where is she?” asked one particularly dim looking man.

“The rope snapped,” said another. “One of us should go after her.”

“And get caught in the current ourselves?!”

They bickered for what felt like hours. Zelda shed her favourite blue cloak, took off her shoes, and tried to undo her dress, but she could not reach the cords. “Untie me,” she ordered Edward. He hesitated, but she would not have it. “I’m going in whether you do it or not. If I go into the water wearing this dress, I will float and they will execute me.”

“Zelda-”

“Either untie me or, so help me Satan, I shall rip this dress seam from seam,” she snarled up into his face.

Edward relented. He untied the knot and helped her out of her dress, until she stood there in her sark. The wind froze her bones, and she began to mentally prepare herself for worse. Mother reached out to grab Zelda but she batted her away and jumped into the sea from the rocks.

The cold froze her blood. Her skin was going to freeze and crack. But there were more important things than her skin at stake. Zelda swam towards the place the child sank. Beneath the water, she found nothing but what belonged. After diving down, she searched the sea bed for a body, but there was nothing. Just the wilds of the seas. It was exhausting, fighting against the current.

She broke the surface for air and immediately went back down. Further along, she found the frayed end of the rope, snagged between rocks near the bottom of the sea. The rest was nowhere here, nor was the young witch to whom it had been attached.

For the love of all that was unholy, where was she?

Air. She needed to breathe.

Above the water, her skin turned to broken ice. Her limbs grew weaker by the minute. The current played havoc with her now; it pushed and pulled her against her will. If it could do this to her, what hope did a child half her size have?

Hopeless, she swam back to the shore.

Her surroundings were vague. The edges of her vision blurred into a haze and everything was far too bright. A ringing in her ears drowned out everyone’s words, their admonishment and their concern. The wind shredded her wet face, and she was quite sure the entire world could see her cheekbones. All she was aware of was her father’s warm cloak around her, the sting of the cold salty air in her throat, and the sharp rocks on her bare feet. She had failed. She had failed to save a life. If only she had jumped in sooner, refused to wait to see what the mortals would do. Those few minutes might have saved that young life.

A pair of arms lifted her from the ground. “You foolish, brave girl,” Edward said into her ear.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I couldn’t find her. I’m sorry.”

He kissed her temple. “You have nothing to be sorry for, sister.”

* * *

** Now **

The night was endless. Hours were days.

Zelda pulled the covers closer to her chin. She was not in anyway cold, but she felt small. The bed swamped her where she lay. Her knees drew upwards towards her chest. It had been a long time since she had felt tiny; her own fragility could be the end of her if she allowed it to be. There was a nakedness that came with this. Completely unprotected but for the blankets around her, she touched the skin of her shoulder. She was so bare, she might freeze to death. Or maybe her heart would break first.

That heart beat rapidly in her chest. It fluttered like the wings of a butterfly; she could feel it in her throat and her stomach. Her breath caught in her chest when she swallowed back her tears.

She closed her eyes and tried to calm her mind. No more seas. No more Mother. No more faults. No more memory. Just Zelda Fiona Spellman and her bed, where she was safe and she was loved.

But she was not safe. Three times she had been tormented under this roof, and by someone she could not see or know.

She was not alone. She had her sister, her niece, her nephew, her coven…she was not on her own.

But they were her responsibility, not the other way around. It was up to her to protect all these people who surrounded her.

She was not powerless. Far from it – she was a witch.

But this person who stalked her was also a witch, and they might be more formidable than she. They had been in this bedroom, where they had dragged up history best left in the centuries behind her.

Why? Why do that?

Those toys had last been played with by Hilda while they sailed across the Atlantic. Upon their arrival, Mother had ordered Hilda to leave these things in her drawer untouched and Hilda had obeyed. Then Zelda had moved them at Father’s behest; they had barely been seen since.

And that dress, the best dress, and the shoes. The blanket. They had been kept safe for so many years, and then sprawled over this room with no care at all. Thrown across the floor.

A drop of rain hit the window. Another followed, and another, again and again, until the house was at the centre of a torrential downpour. The rain, Zelda had always found, had a way of calming her. It was a consistent noise, one that was supposed to be heard. Her eyelids grew heavy; she no longer had to force them closed.

A lullaby of rain and the darkness finally coaxed her to sleep, only for her to be met with the dreams of all her memories, warped into nightmares.


	6. Come What May

** 1709 **

This was the last night. The last night here before they began their journey to the ship for America. Zelda’s last chance to scour these shores for a missing soul, despite the obvious futility. Edward would tell her to stop torturing herself, which was why he had no idea she was here. None of the family did. Her parents would only scold her, and Hilda would want to follow; it was something she had to do alone.

Frost grew in colonies of diamonds on the stones. She went to the rocks from whence she had gone into the sea. She had left a cloak here, which her family had forgotten to retrieve. It was no longer there, four days after it had been left. The mortals must have lifted it.

The moonlight bounced on the calm sea from where it lurked between the hills opposite Zelda. The chances of a seven-year-old child surviving her ordeal followed by exposure to February nights was negligible, but did they not say it was the hope that killed? Every sensible fibre of Zelda’s being told her that the remains of a child lay on the bed of this sea, but the hope told her she might be wrong. The hope tormented her. It tried to drown out common sense.

Maybe if she had been faster. Maybe if she had not hesitated. Maybe if she were braver. Maybe. Maybe. _Maybe_ …

She could see it in her mother’s eyes when their gazes met, that she had been broken by Zelda’s failure to be…to be what was needed.

It was too cold for this. What were the odds of finding anything? She risked exposure for the tiniest shard of a chance.

The track home was frozen mud, for it had rained for three whole days. The day after that fatal test, as they had stood at the shore and watched the empty waters, discussing their future, rain had begun to fall; it had not stopped for three days and nights, but it relented this morning. It gave way to clear skies and frozen air, leaving the rural roads treacherous.

How could this have happened? How could she had _let_ this happen? There must have been something she could have done to stop it. She had known that girl for all her seven years, and yet had done nothing to try and save her until it was far too late.

In the darkness, Zelda could have sworn she saw those bright green eyes before her, but she knew better than to believe what she saw. It was just her grief playing tricks on her. Grief that she could never let the world see, for she had to make them think she was strong. Invincible. A tiny human thing like grief could not overcome her; it was a luxury not afforded to her.

Absorbed as she was in thought, her feet lost their grip on the road. Zelda fell. Her back hit the ground and the corner of her forehead clattered off a rounded stone embedded in the road. “For crying out loud!” she hissed at herself. With her bones aching, she pushed herself up on her elbows. The night moved around her; her only bearing was the gentle roll of the sea to her left.

Zelda sat there on the ice and the dirt, defeated. She was not badly hurt. Somehow that made it all worse.

It swelled in her chest, and it tried to break her ribs. It could not burst through her chest. She drew a ragged breath, the cold air pinching at her throat; there was no way to stop it. The tears fell. Nothing could ever be alright again. Her world was in pieces at her feet and it was her own fault. Death, she knew now, had a way of infecting every thought, every memory, every emotion. Even the frustration of having fallen on the ice was tainted by Death’s diseased hands.

If there was anyone around to hear her wail, they might have mistaken her for a banshee. The sound broke this night into a broken glass that cut open her chest and her heart. She had never known agony like it. There was no way forward and yet what lay in front seemed like it would never end. If she thought she was brave enough, she would have torn the life from herself just to make this stop.

How did people survive this? And why wasn’t there a pool of blood around her? Shouldn’t there have been evidence of the pain that took over her entire body?

She could not remember screaming like this before in her life. In the years to come, she would wonder where on Earth it had come from.

Whether it was minutes or whole nights that had passed, Zelda was not quite sure. Disorientated and exhausted, she climbed up onto her feet and stumbled home, more careful where she put her feet this time. Once in the house, she quietly tended the wound on her head and got out of her clothes, ready to wrestle for sleep.

In the morning, she would tell her family that she had hit her head on a beam in the night.

* * *

** Now **

“Mail for you, Aunt Zee,” Sabrina said, rather too brightly for this time of the morning. She passed Zelda the envelopes and went to see what Hilda was making for breakfast.

Zelda set her news paper down and looked through her mail. Bill, junk, another bill, handwritten envelope…

Handwritten envelope? She scanned the writing. It was most definitely addressed to Zelda Fiona Spellman, but she had never seen this penmanship before. Thinking better of opening it in front of the rest of the family, she slipped it into her pocket and stood up. “Everything okay, Zelds?” asked Hilda.

“Yes,” said Zelda. “I forgot to make my bed, that’s all.”

“Oh, I’ll do that later,” replied Hilda, waving her hand casually.

“You have enough to do, sister, without my own laziness adding to it.”

The frown she received from Hilda told her that she was in no way off the hook, but that was a matter for later. Zelda went up the stairs to her bedroom; her bed was already made, of course, so she sat down and carefully tore open the letter.

_Dear Zelda,_

_I have returned something that belongs to you. I found it a long time ago, somewhere it did not belong. Your stepdaughter is looking after it, and will hand it over upon your request. She awaits your arrival._

There was no signature. No name other than her own. By “stepdaughter” Zelda could only assume the sender referred to Prudence Blackwood, as she was, strictly speaking, still married to the girl’s father. What was this about? She could not think of anyone who possessed anything that belonged to her that she did not already know about, and certainly none of them would return the items in this clandestine fashion.

Zelda darted down the stairs, pushing the note into her inside breast pocket as she ran, and called, “I’m going to the Academy!” to her family; she pulled open the door, and she left. She was sure she heard Hilda’s footsteps trying to catch up to her before she closed the door.

This was ridiculous. Sheer madness. When would it stop? When yet another of this coven’s members was lying dead?

No, Zelda reminded herself, if they intended to make an attempt upon anyone’s life, they would have tried it by now. There had been plenty of opportunity. This was a game. A battle of the minds, perhaps. Or of spirits. What Zelda had left of her spirit.

The dining hall at the Academy was filled with the low chattering of teenagers with no homes. Zelda scanned the room until she found Prudence; she stood behind her and said, her voice low, “May I have a word?”

Prudence looked up. “Of course.”

Outside the dining room, in the empty entrance hall, Zelda said, “I received a letter this morning, saying that you have been given something of mine for safekeeping.”

“Oh,” said Prudence. “Oh, yes. I gave it to Mambo Marie last night. She said she would come to you with it this evening.”

“Marie?” Zelda asked; that surprised her, that Prudence would pass it along.

“Yes. It seemed a harmless enough package but the woman who gave it to me seemed to think it might upset you. I thought if that was the case, you would prefer to be around someone you trust,” she explained.

“I trust you, Prudence, you know that.”

“I meant you might prefer to be with someone who makes you feel safe,” she elaborated. Zelda did not quite know how to respond, but Prudence saved her the trouble. “She said you might destroy it, but asked me to urge you not to. So, I guess this is my moment to advise against destroying it.”

“Alright,” said Zelda with a sigh. “Do you know where Marie is?”

“In her quarters, I’d expect.”

“Thank you, Prudence. You’d best get back to your breakfast before one of the young men inhales it in your absence.”

Prudence smiled and left Zelda alone in the entrance hall.

In under a minute, Zelda was rapping her knuckles against Marie’s door. “Zelda,” said Marie as she opened the door. “Do come in!”

Marie’s hand fell gently upon Zelda’s back; right now, it was difficult to accept such casual affection. “Prudence says she gave you something of mine to pass on,” Zelda said matter-of-factly.

“Ah!” said Marie. “But of course, the parcel!”

Zelda frowned when Marie handed her a soft package, wrapped in black paper and bound with twine. “Did she say what it is?” asked Zelda.

“No, ma belle, I’m afraid not.”

Hands shaking for no reason Zelda could find, she untied the twine and pulled apart the packaging until she was left with a neatly folded mound of deep blue fabric in her hands. Upon unfolding it, she realised it was a cloak. Surely not? How could it be? There was one way to know for certain – Zelda searched the lining for the marks she had made when she had first been given the cloak: _Z.F.S._

And sure as the sun in the sky and the leaves on the trees, it was there.

She dropped it from her hands like it had burned her.

“Zelda?” Marie said urgently. “What is wrong?”

She had not seen the cloak since that day she had searched the sea in vain, for it had been her father’s clothes that had warmed her when she reached the shore. “Who delivered this?”

“Prudence Blackwood.”

“Who delivered it to _her_?”

“A woman,” Marie answered; she bent down and picked the cloak up from the floor. “That was all she told me. What is it, Zelda?” She took Zelda by the hand and led her to sit on the edge of the bed. “What has you so frightened?”

Zelda rankled a little at being told she was scared, despite the truth in it. “I’m not frightened. I’m shocked.”

“Shocked?”

“I have not seen that cloak in three hundred years, Marie,” she whispered. “I presumed it lost.”

“You must tell me from the beginning,” said Marie, “so that I may understand why it bothers you.”

At this, Zelda turned to Marie; she could not remember the last time someone, especially a lover, had approached her with such a willingness to listen. “This cloak was mine when I was around fourteen,” murmured Zelda. “I took it off when I tried to save a young girl from the sea. I never saw it again, even in the days after she died, when I went back down to the same spot. It was not there.”

Marie’s arm wrapped itself around Zelda’s shoulders. It took all of her might not to push her away or, even worse, let her emotion show. There was a part of her, the same part that longed for the privilege of being loved, that wanted to spill everything. It wanted to keep back no detail. It would have loved nothing more than to shatter every secret this family carried. What a relief it would be, to let it all flood out.

But she had no right. She had done her weeping.

“Oh, ma chérie, I am sorry,” she said. “That must have been horrible.”

Zelda nodded her head once. “It was,” she agreed, though she brushed over it without further comment. “But where has this come from?” She touched the cloak with the very tips of her fingers, running them down the fabric until her fingers met Marie’s. What it was about Marie, Zelda could not know, but she understood at the moment that Zelda needed her hand to hold.

She reached into her breast pocket and pulled out the letter. “May I?” asked Marie.

Marie did not take it from Zelda until she nodded her head and said, “Yes.”

“I found it a long time ago, somewhere it did not belong,” she read aloud. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t have the first clue.”

The woman. The woman in the blue cloak she had seen the day the house flooded; she had not imagined it, nor had she made any mistake. She remembered seeing this cloak on that woman’s back. It had been a little short on her, now that Zelda thought on it; she should have realised then that it was a grown woman in a girl’s cloak. “I think this person – this woman,” she said, tapping the letter with her finger, “is trying to frighten me.”

Marie’s hand took Zelda’s face and gently turned it towards hers. “But you are safe,” she said. “You will be safe with me.”

She pressed a kiss into Zelda’s lips. It was a moment of freedom, a loose link in these chains that shackled her. Zelda craved more. She craved the gentleness of this woman who believed in her. Who thought she was worth more than violence and control. Zelda dared to rest her head on Marie’s collarbone. “What should I do, Marie? What _can_ I do?”

“You really have no knowledge of who might have sent this?”

“No. I can think of no-one.”

“Have you told your sister?”

“No. It would upset her.”

Marie stroked Zelda’s hair. “We will find out what is going on,” she whispered; Zelda felt Marie’s face buried in her hair, and she spoke into the top of her head. “And then we will deal with it, come what may.”


	7. Let It Bend Before It Breaks

** November 1711 **

“Zelda, get your sister’s clothes down for me to wash,” said Mother.

“A “please” wouldn’t go amiss,” Zelda muttered wearily under her breath.

“What was that?” her mother demanded sharply.

“Yes, Mother,” she said quickly; she did not want to anger Mother when she was so heavily pregnant. “Shall I bring down her blanket too?”

“No, I shall do it when the weather breaks.”

Zelda nodded and trudged up the stairs. Biting her tongue was difficult sometimes, but she had to. The woman was twelve months pregnant, for Satan’s sake. It was the perfect excuse to say and do as she pleased with little to no retaliation. And then when she had the baby, she would have the excuse of having just given birth, and then being the stressed mother of an infant…it would never end, would it? Mother was always going to make her resentment known and Zelda would just have put up with it. Father might have sympathised with Zelda but he was never going to say that in front of his wife.

She should never have tried to save the child. Then she would never have failed and Mother would love her. The end result would not have changed, except for Zelda having a mother.

This bloody family, Zelda seethed to herself as she threw Hilda’s clothes into a basket. Mother was unreasonable, Edward and Hilda were carefree and Father was either too preoccupied or too gutless to put things right.

They had been fine back in the old country. It had all changed in a day. In a moment. And she had done her best for all of them. She had honestly believed that her parents would value her more for taking on responsibilities that they had struggled with; her mother had seemed so full of gratitude on that ship. Zelda should have known not to take it at face value. She was grateful only until Zelda managed too well. Managed better than her.

Her punishment, apart from her mother’s indifference, was to be kept exactly where she did not want to be: here. She wanted to go to the Academy, to study like her brother and her father. To learn. All she wanted was to learn and build her power and her skill. Instead, she was stuck here.

She trundled back into the kitchen and set the full basket down on the table. “Chop the vegetables for the soup,” said Mother when she turned to pick up the basket.

“Yes,” she replied tonelessly. It was mindless. It left too much room for reflection. Her exhausted mind should not have had the time to think; it was one of the most attractive things about study. She was surprised with the almost venomous force with which she put the knife through a carrot at the thought. “Mother, once I have finished chopping these, may I go to the Academy? I have taken my Dark Baptism, after all, and I really ought to study more.”

“I need you here.”

Zelda remembered what she had said to her father a year ago: _“Needing someone and wanting them are completely different.”_

And she could not stop herself. “You might need me, but you do not want me here,” she snapped. Being deprived of the opportunities afforded to her brother and the affection given to her sister was intolerable. Pregnant or not, she could not take this from her own mother any longer.

Mother looked at her, like she could not believe Zelda dared confront her. “I do want you here.”

“You don’t.” Zelda put the knife down and stepped forwards. “You have not wanted me here since we arrived in this country. I am only worth that for which I am useful.”

“Get a grip, Zelda,” said Mother. She sounded bored. “You are sixteen years old. Such petty insecurity should be long behind you.”

“It is _not_ petty!”

“What would you call it, then?”

“I feel like I am your servant, not your daughter!”

“Because I need you to pull your weight?”

“No, because you treat me differently! You love Edward and Hilda – you just put up with me.” She took yet another step towards her mother; there were mere inches between their faces now, most of the space below occupied by Mother’s pregnant belly. “You wish it had been me, don’t you?”

Mother’s eyes narrowed. “What the Heaven are you raving about, girl?”

“You would rather it was me the mortals drowned,” said Zelda. “You wish I was the one who had died. Go on. Admit it.”

_Smack_.

Zelda turned her face back towards her mother, for it had just been knocked sideways. Had Mother actually hit her across the face? Shocked, Zelda stepped back. Aside from the odd sharp tap to the ear or a slap on the behind when she was naughty as a child, she could not recall either of her parents really hitting her.

“Zelda, I’m-” Mother began to say, but Zelda did not want to hear whatever feeble excuse she was about to give.

“Save it for someone who might believe you,” Zelda said quite calmly. She was not angry. She was defeated.

She left the kitchen to retrieve her winter cloak and her boots; she sat on the bottom stair while she tied the laces. Mother came out to meet her. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“The Academy,” Zelda replied abruptly, not that the woman deserved the courtesy of an answer. “I need to study, and to study, I need the library.”

“But the weather, Zelda, the snow-”

“There is no need to pretend now. I have already accepted that you do not truly care about what happens to me.”

Mother held her stare for a moment; Zelda hoped she was going to say something, anything, to prove her wrong. And yet again, it was the hope which killed. Mother turned her back on Zelda and went back to the kitchen.

* * *

** Now **

The sound of a tapping at the office door broke through Zelda’s silence. “Come in!” she called, though she would have preferred solitude.

Hilda entered the room, her face as optimistic and as kind as ever. “What can I do for you, sister?” Zelda asked.

“I just wanted to check you’re alright,” said Hilda. “You made quite the speedy exit this morning.”

“Yes, I’m fine, Hilda. It was merely a complication with one of the students I had to attend to.”

“Which one?”

“Pardon?”

“Which student?” When Zelda hesitated, Hilda sighed, “I thought as much.”

Zelda picked up a sheet of paper and pretended to read it. After a moment, she looked up. “Was there anything else?” she asked.

Hilda smiled, but it was filled with concern and understanding; Zelda did not like it. She did not like it one bit. “You haven’t been sleeping,” she said. “I hear you get up in the night.”

“It’s the heat,” invented Zelda. “It makes sleeping uncomfortable.”

“Don’t lie. This is like what you used to do when I was a child. You used to get up and wander. Stare out of windows. Scribble endlessly in journals and-”

“Enough.”

“No. Not enough.” It was always a terrible sign when Hilda challenged her like this. It meant the mask was slipping and Hilda, if not the world, could see the mess that hid behind it. “I know, Zelds. I know it plays on your mind, the way things were with Mother. I know you’re lying awake thinking “what if” but it doesn’t-”

“I am doing nothing of the sort. Such futile musings are foolish.”

Hilda leaned forward, standing over the desk and examining Zelda closely. “What is it? Why did you practically sprint out the front door this morning?”

“It was nothing.”

“You’re lying.”

Zelda sighed angrily. Very well. So be it. Any reaction Hilda took was on herself now, if she was going to insist upon the truth. She harshly pulled open the tope drawer of her desk and took out the letter she had received this morning; she resisted the temptation to throw it at her sister, instead thrusting it impatiently into her hand.

Hilda opened it and read it quickly. “What was it? The thing that was returned to you?”

From the same drawer, Zelda extracted the blue cloak, folded neatly, and set it down on the desk. “It was mine,” she said. Her voice sounded rather hollow. “You might not remember it.”

“I do,” said Hilda. “But I never saw you wear it after that day.”

“It disappeared. I presumed one of the mortals took it with them.”

Another knock at the door interrupted them. This time it was Ambrose, but he burst in without being called. “Aunties, there’s something you should see downstairs.”

The urgency in his tone compelled the sisters to run down the stairs after their nephew. When they reached the entrance hall, there was no doubt as to why he had called for them. The figure of a small woman, hidden in the depths of an emerald green cloak, stood just beyond the open front door. In her hands was a jar filled with water. Far too late, Zelda tried to run through the door and take that jar from the woman’s hands. Before she got to her, Zelda’s throat and mouth filled with salty water; she felt it in her stomach, weighing her to the ground. “Hilda!” she tried to call out, but she only spluttered water and gargled nonsense.

She could not move. Even though she knew she was not drowning, panic spread through her like poison. Behind her, she could hear her sister call out, “What do you want?! Why are you tormenting Zelda?!”

Ambrose ran past Zelda, but the witch lifted one hand and froze him to the spot. Helpless, she watched him try every incantation he knew to free himself, but nothing worked. Zelda turned around and gestured to Hilda to help, but she was struggling to see a way for Hilda – or anyone – to end this.

But it was Hilda Spellman.

In the corner of her eye, Zelda saw a tiny stone rise from the ground. Having the hood over her eyes limiting her line of sight, there was no way the unknown witch could have seen it. Suddenly, the stone flew at the speed of a bullet, straight into the jar. The glass shattered and the jar, with its contents, fell to the ground. Zelda choked on the water in her body as it spewed out of her mouth and she coughed up seaweed and seawater. Ambrose could move now; the witch’s spell must have been broken when her focus failed.

He conjured a thick cord of rope and tied it around the woman’s hands to prevent her from attacking. “Take her to the Witch’s Cell,” croaked Zelda. “Don’t be rough with her.”

Ambrose nodded his head and led the woman into the Academy; she resisted but she was much smaller than Ambrose. He did not need to use force to keep her from breaking free. Hilda was suddenly at Zelda’s side. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Zelda said. She turned to stride back into the Academy, but stopped when she saw that all the students, and Marie, stood watching her. “I can assure you everything is under control!” she called to them. “As you were!”

The children dispersed, but Marie remained where she was until Zelda passed her and she began to follow Hilda and her to the Witch’s Cell. “Where are you going?” asked Zelda.

“With you, ma chérie,” she said, as though it was painfully obvious. “I did say you would be safe with me.”

Zelda shook her head to herself but knew better than try to argue Marie out of it.

Down in the Cell, Zelda, Hilda and Marie found Ambrose wrestling with the small woman, imploring her to remain calm. In defence of the witch, she was being forced into a cell, and Zelda could not blame her for being a little agitated. She walked into the cell without any hesitation. “Nobody here wants to harm you,” she said. “You are in this cell only to prevent you from launching another attack upon me.”

At this, the hooded woman grew still. “Why aren’t you fighting back?” she asked. Her voice was soft with a lilt that reminded Zelda vaguely of the Celts. Not at all how she had expected a woman so powerful and aggressive to sound.

“I have no need to now that I am safe, for the time being,” explained Zelda. “But I would like to know who you are, and why you seem so Heaven bent on making me and my family suffer.”

The woman irritably pushed Ambrose’s hands from her arms and stood perfectly still. “I would have thought someone as intelligent as you would have pieced it together by now, Zelda,” she said. “Or at least that Hilda would have realised what was going on.”

“You were there,” said Hilda. “You were there when they-”

“Of course I was there,” snarled the woman.

“But the cloak,” Marie said, stepping into the Cell beside the Spellmans. “If you wage war against Zelda Spellman, why return her cloak?”

The woman laughed bitterly. “She wasn’t getting the message,” she said. “I thought it might get it through to her. And besides, it is better here with its owner, regardless of her character, than in some mortal’s historical collection.”

Zelda’s patience was evaporating into nothing. “Enough of this. Who are you?” The woman did not answer. “What is your name?!”

The witch straightened herself up and folded her arms across her chest. “Imelda Morgan Spellman.”

“What?!” Hilda and Zelda cried in unison.

Marie frowned at Zelda, obviously confused.

Ambrose looked at the ceiling and said, “Another Spellman. That’s all this family needs.”


	8. What Are the Stars Made From, Zelda?

**Now **

“I will not entertain this nonsense,” Zelda said flatly. “Come. She may sit here alone until she chooses to tell the truth.”

“Zelda, I don’t think you should do that,” Hilda implored her. “What if she’s telling the truth?”

The woman said nothing. If she was telling the truth, she would have lowered her hood and proven it to them, for there would have been no mistaking Imelda Spellman, even now. The fact that she kept her face hidden told Zelda all she wanted to know. “No,” she replied. “It would be impossible, and you know it.”

What she did not say was that she dared not hope it was the truth, only for it to be exposed as a lie. Her heart could not take it. Hope, she knew, was a killer. She chivvied Hilda and Marie from the Cell.

“Come, Ambrose!” she barked.

“Auntie, don’t you think we ought to hear her out?”

Zelda closed her eyes for a moment before she turned on her heel to glare at her nephew; resigned, he threw his hands up and followed her from the room. He did not need to speak to be able to tell her he believed she was making a mistake but, fortunately, this was not his decision to make.

“What are the stars made from, Zelda?” the witch asked.

Ambrose turned and frowned at the woman like she was mad, asking such a question of her gaoler. Hilda and Marie were similarly confused by her. Zelda, however, stopped dead in her tracks. Nobody else had ever known of that conversation – after all, it had started with them breaking all the rules they had ever obeyed.

She slammed the Cell door closed and locked it without answering. “She will tell the truth,” Zelda told the others. “Give her a few hours in there and she will be begging to confess.”

* * *

** August 1707 **

“Zelda.”

Zelda stirred reluctantly and forced her eyes open when a small hand shook her arm. “What is it?” she grumbled. In the moonlight, she saw a little figure, a girl quietly sobbing. “What’s wrong? Did you have a bad dream?”

“No.”

“Then what is wrong, ‘Melda?” Zelda asked impatiently, her words still a little groggy while she woke up. “It is the middle of the night.”

“I dreamed I was up in the stars.”

“What is so awful about that?”

“I’m not up in the stars,” said Imelda; she began to cry. “I can’t touch them.”

“Oh, for Satan’s sake!” Zelda sighed. She sat up in bed and looked over at Hilda, still sound asleep. Why was it always her Imelda went to? What set her apart from Mother and Father, or Hilda, or Edward? Imelda always came to Zelda with this nonsense. “Don’t be so ridiculous. None of us can go to the stars.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Imelda’s face contorted, ready for her to wail. Zelda often forgot Imelda had only just turned six years old; she was bound to have unrealistic expectations and absurd notions from time to time.

Zelda reached out a placating hand to Imelda’s shoulder. “It’s alright,” she said. “We can see the stars from here, can we not? We do not need to be with them to know their beauty.”

Imelda gave a little nod and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her nightdress. Her thick black hair fell around her face in waves, giving her a slightly deranged look. “But we cannot see them very well,” mumbled Imelda.

With another look over at Hilda’s sleeping form, Zelda carefully climbed out of bed. “Get your shoes and cloak. _Quietly_.” Imelda obeyed without questioning her. Zelda pressed her finger to her lips and beckoned her out the bedroom door; Imelda nodded enthusiastically and followed her. They crept down the stairs, careful not to put down their feet where they knew the wood might squeak, and Zelda slowly opened the front door. Once outside in the cool night air, Zelda turned around and whispered, “You do not tell anyone we did this, do you understand me?”

“Yes!”

There was a small hill behind the house, green and lush with flowers and trees. They climbed slowly and cautiously, for if Mother spotted any nettle stings on their legs in the morning she would know they had been outside in the night. At the tree near the top of the mound, the one from which Hilda’s swing hung, Zelda sat down and gestured for Imelda to do the same. They looked up at the clear night sky, filled with stars in their thousands. “Now tell me you cannot see them,” she said to Imelda. “How could you fail to see something so bright unless you are blind?”

“But we are here,” complained Imelda, “and they are in the sky.”

“And in the sky they shall remain,” said Zelda. “Do you believe it our right to rip them from the sky, even to admire them?”

“No, but we could visit them.”

“Maybe one day we will find a way to visit the skies. But for now, we must admire the stars from the Earth.”

Imelda, calmer now, leaned into Zelda’s side. “They are so pretty,” she said contentedly. “What do you think they are made of?”

“I could never be sure. A material so bright we can see it even from here, or perhaps even light itself.”

“I think they might be made of water,” said Imelda. “Or diamonds. Or they could be made of fire.”

Zelda smiled to herself. Imelda always did have wild, eccentric ideas; she was very like Edward in that respect, but she delivered them with the same kind of innocence as Hilda. “You may very well be right,” she said.

“Where do they go during the day?”

“I think they are always there,” said Zelda, “but we can only see them in the dark.”

Imelda looked up at Zelda, her eyes wide, the green almost glowing in the moonlight. “You mean they never go away?”

“I do not think so. There are so many of them – where else could they all go?”

“How far away are they?”

“Thousands and millions of miles away. That is why you cannot go to them. We are destined to watch them from here, and leave them to their beauty.” She put her arm around Imelda and held her close; loath as she was to admit it, she did find something lovable in this fixation with the stars above, despite all the unanswerable questions it raised.

They sat under the tree for a while, quite relaxed. Occasionally Imelda pointed out a particularly bright star, or one that seemed to flicker a little; it was only when Imelda let out a wide yawn that Zelda decided it was time to return home. “Come,” she said once she was on her feet, her hand outstretched for Imelda to grasp. “We must return to our beds, before we are missed.”

* * *

** Now **

Zelda stood in her office, surrounded by Hilda, Marie and Ambrose. Speechless, she went to the decanter and poured herself a drink; her hands trembled as she raised the glass to her lips. “What was that about?” asked Ambrose. “Why did she ask what the stars are made of?”

“She is raving,” Zelda said dismissively. “Trying to distract us from her lies.”

“Who is this Imelda she claims to be?” Marie said. She came closer and stared right into Zelda’s eyes; it made her uncomfortable, for she knew she might not be able to fool her with a lie.

“Another rambling invention.”

“Zelda, don’t lie about that,” Hilda replied.

“You honestly believe that is Imelda Spellman down there?!” retorted Zelda. She tried to swallow back the frantic bite in her tone, but feared she failed quite spectacularly. “Please, sister, do not be so naïve.”

Hilda raised her eyebrows. “You know what I meant. Imelda was _not_ an invention. And, for the record, I don’t know what to believe.” She looked right at Zelda and said, “Imelda was our sister. She died when we were children.”

Ambrose sat down, his hands over his face for a moment. “I’ve never heard of her,” he said. “Why don’t you speak of her?”

“It’s a touchy subject for your Aunt Zelda, Ambrose,” Hilda explained. “She and our mother didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye for a long time after Imelda died.”

Ambrose’s head jerked upwards so he could see Zelda. “The girl who drowned,” he said. “The one you tried to save. She was your _sister_?! Why didn’t you say so?”

“I do not speak of it,” Zelda said flatly. “I do not speak of _her_.”

Marie, suspiciously quiet about the matter, gravitated to Zelda’s side, her hand on the small of Zelda’s back. She had realised why Zelda did not speak of Imelda, and that in itself was a strange and unwelcome sensation.

Hilda looked at Zelda for help, for an answer to the chaos, but how could she help? There was someone down in that Cell claiming to be her dead sister, and her family might fall for it. What was it about hope that blinded even the wisest mind? Love, she supposed. Hope and love combined were dangerous.

“Say, for the sake of argument, she’s telling the truth,” Hilda began carefully, “and we turn her away. Can you imagine how that would make her feel? How she might react?”

“But there is no argument,” replied Zelda. “That cannot be Imelda Spellman. You and I watched her die, Hilda!”

Her sister shook her head in disdain and sat down in a chair, her face buried in her hands. Guilt suddenly washed through Zelda; she hated to see Hilda this way, and hated even more that she was partly to blame. However, to allow her to hope there might be truth in a lie would only break her heart, and Zelda could not bear the thought.

Marie turned to Zelda and said, “We will solve this, ma chérie.”

“No. We will leave her in the Witch’s Cell until she confesses.”

“That will only-”

“Have we learned nothing?” Zelda shouted, her nerves finally shredded. “Haven’t we learned what happens when we believe imposters’ lies and react with leniency?!”

She surveyed the room at large; they thought she was being unreasonable. She could tell it from their faces. It was fine for them – they were not responsible for the safety of this family and the entire coven. Hope was a privilege Zelda did not have, for it was almost always in vain, and the consequences were too severe to even consider taking the risk. They would never understand, would they?

The looks on their faces haunted her; she left the room and stalked the halls of the Academy, trying to make some sense of it all. There was no way the woman could have been Imelda. Like she had said to Hilda, they had watched her die three centuries ago. To bring it up, to use one of Zelda’s greatest failures…why would she do that? Who had she hurt or offended badly enough for them to retaliate with such a lie?

There had always been a sense of betrayal about Imelda’s death that went far beyond what Mother had felt about the whole thing. As a child, Imelda had stuck to Zelda like a tattoo. She had idolised Zelda, in a way, and had been closer to her than either of her other two siblings. So when Zelda could not save her, she felt she had betrayed that pedestal her youngest sister had placed her on. She had failed the girl who had loved her more than she loved her own life.

Sometimes, she could not blame her mother for they way she had dealt with it. Imelda had been so sweet, so wondrous, that it might have been natural to wish that the eldest daughter – the one who seemed so serious and impatient – had been lost instead.

And as for the family she had left in her office, they did not understand. She was glad they didn’t understand, because it meant they had not carried the same burden. Zelda had no doubt that Hilda was currently filling Ambrose and Marie in on the joys of their childhood; it saved her the hassle of having to do it herself, if nothing else. She was not an idiot. She knew she would have to go back to them, and that they waited for her, as they always did and probably always would.

Perhaps it was better just to get it over with. Squash their resistance once and for all, no matter how brutally she was forced to do it. A little less frenetic than she was when she left, she turned and made her way back to her office. As she predicted, they had waited there for her; Hilda would have known she would return in the end.

Hilda got to her feet. “Don’t bite our heads off,” she said quickly, “but while you were out, Ambrose made a very good point.”

Zelda raised an eyebrow and looked at her nephew. “And what might that be, O Great Mastermind?”

Ambrose ignored the sarcasm and took it for what it was, a poor attempt at defending her own heart. “You did _not_ watch Imelda die,” he said. “You only watched her vanish.”


	9. A Three-Hundred-Year-Old Stare

** Now **

She had not seen Imelda die. She had seen her disappear.

It made sense. It was a valid and logical point. A body was never found. But the sea must have taken her; she was so small and it was so powerful. So cold – even if she did not drown, she would have frozen. Witch or not, she would not have known how to save herself.

“She must have died, Ambrose,” said Zelda carefully. She did not wish to sound like she hoped her sister was dead and gone, but she just could see no way around the fact. “You weren’t there. She was swept under the water. Hilda, back me up here!”

“Yes, she was pulled under the water,” Hilda agreed, though not entirely with all her heart. “But how can we know for sure what happened to her?”

“How could a child of that size live through such an ordeal, Hilda?!”

Hilda looked at Zelda in a way she had never done before now. In that one look, she demanded of her sister a reason for giving no hope. To tell her that Zelda simply could not hope for something so unlikely would only hurt Hilda more. She knew herself that it told of an inability to dream of the best, which Hilda would pick up on instantly.

Playing for time, Zelda walked slowly behind her desk to sit down; she felt safer here, as this was the seat from which she controlled the Academy. “Hilda, Marie, go and check on our guest, would you?” Zelda said quietly. “Make sure she has food and something to drink. I hate to use the dungeons at all, so if I must I want to be sure our inmate is reasonably well cared for.”

Both Hilda and Marie looked as if they were tempted to argue, but left when they thought better of it. Ambrose came over to sit down opposite Zelda, across the desk. “You know, auntie, it is a claim worth investigating.”

“It’s poppycock and you know it.”

“Why are you so unwilling to even consider it?”

Zelda shuffled the papers about on top of the desk, doing absolutely nothing with them. “To raise everyone’s hopes for a lie? It would be cruel, Ambrose.”

“You mean _your_ hopes,” he answered. She looked up from her desk. “Sabrina knows nothing about this, and she never knew Imelda anyway. Nor did I. And Hilda seems perfectly up for looking into it.”

“I’m sure she is,” scoffed Zelda. Hilda always was more than willing to fall foul of optimism.

Ambrose frowned at her. “Don’t you want to know? She might be your sister.”

“And she probably isn’t.”

* * *

** August 1707 **

Zelda stood, basket on her arm, and watched her sisters play at the seaside, splashing one another. It was one of the few good days left – from August onwards the sun tended to hide and the rain loved to pour. Then the rain would make way for wind, sleet and snow. The snow wasn’t so bad, so long as it was proper snow and not disgusting slush that seeped into every blemish in the land. At least now there was some warmth in the air; in a few weeks it would turn cold until next spring.

“Hilda,” Zelda called out. “Imelda! Come and get some food!”

They came over, smiling broadly under the sun. “What do we have?” asked Hilda.

“Bread, jam and cake,” she said. “With some barley water.”

They sat upon the bluntest of the surrounding rocks and took the food Zelda passed to them. They ate with the restraint of a pair of starved gulls. Playing in the water, after all, was a strenuous activity, which required good fuel. “After this, we shall walk home,” said Zelda. They groaned, as Zelda knew they would. At this point it was a matter of habit. “Even witches must be able to read, write and count.”

“I _can_ count,” Imelda protested, her green eyes glinting in the sunlight.

“Yes,” agreed Zelda, “but there is also geometry, money, fractions-”

“Alright! You can stop now, before the dullness puts me to sleep!”

Zelda scowled, knowing it would have no effect at all on Imelda. It never did. Hilda, on the other hand, quickly concentrated on her food. “You may find it dull, sister, but you are fortunate to have any kind of schooling. Many mortal women get very little in the way of education.”

“Is being taught by your sister really an education?” countered Imelda. “Boys get to go to _real_ schools.”

“When that sister has plenty to teach, yes.”

They sat and ate under the late summer sunshine, at peace with the world – apart from the fact boys were permitted to go to actual schools. The disparity did irritate everyone in the Spellman family. Interestingly, though, it was Edward who was the most vocal about it. His sister would be allowed to study under the same roof as him, but they would be limited in what they could study. He believed all witches and warlocks should have the right to study anything they chose to, and Zelda was inclined to agree with him. She had accepted there were arts in which she would likely never be educated, but if she were ever to have children, she would have liked them to have the same entitlements, regardless of sex.

On the road home, Imelda wandered. She always did wander, no matter where they went. Her mind always in the clouds, her feet barely on the ground, she floated through her days and lived for the night. For the moon and the stars and the mystery millions of miles above her head.

They approached the apple trees that grew by the side of the single track road, providing shade to those who walked her. Imelda started to climb one of them. “Come down!” Zelda called out to her.

“In a minute!”

“Imelda!” Hilda shouted. “You’re going to fall!”

“I won’t!”

Imelda pulled an apple from the branch above her. As she bit into it, Zelda tried to warn her, “These apples are not yet ripe! It will be-”

She gagged on her mouthful of apple and spat it out, her face twisted.

“…bitter,” Zelda finished, torn between exasperation and amusement at the horrified look upon her youngest sister’s face. “I did try to tell you.”

Hilda fell about laughing; it was infectious. Zelda found herself chuckling in spite of herself. Imelda glowered at them for a moment and threw the bitten apple down at her sisters. It missed both Hilda and Zelda, and bounced on the dry ground. She climbed down from the tree, looking deeply unimpressed with the taste left in her mouth. “Give them a month,” Zelda said as she brushed her sister down, “and they will be sweet.”

“I’m never eating another apple in my life,” she grumbled.

“Say that again next month,” Hilda replied. “You’ll be up that tree like a squirrel.”

Zelda led them home, trying to bite back the smile that played on her lips.

* * *

** Now **

A knock at the door disturbed Zelda. Not that she was not already disturbed, but it broke through the trance-like stare she held to the wall opposite. Hilda walked quietly into the room. “Don’t you think you should go and see what’s going on?” she asked.

“No.”

“She remembers things only Imelda would be able to.”

“That does not mean she is Imelda.”

“Can’t you give the idea a chance?”

“Why?”

Hilda stood in Zelda’s line of sight; she said nothing, which forced Zelda to look up into her face. “Have you seen her face?”

“No,” admitted Hilda. “She isn’t keen to take her hood down.”

“Well, there you go. If she were who she claims to be, she would show her face to prove it.”

“You _know_ there are a lot of reasons she might want to hide her face!” Irritated, Zelda jumped to her feet and strode out the office and down the stairs. “Where are you going now?!” Hilda shouted after her.

“To put an end to this farce, once for all!”

Along the dungeon halls, the click of her heels echoed between the stone walls; her breath caught when she saw the door to the cell in question. Could she do this? It was easier not to know. Not to believe it. To have it proved or disproved…each outcome brought its own impossibilities. If it was proven that Imelda Spellman sat within these walls, there were so many questions and memories to be dragged up that it would wreck every part of her. If it was proven to be a lie, she would have to console Hilda, who had dared to hope, and she would still have someone out for Zelda’s blood.

Well, she was here now. She threw open the cell door.

The woman sat, Marie standing over her, drinking from a glass of water. “Who are you?” demanded Zelda, unable to keep herself from hostility.

“Imelda Morgan Spellman.”

“I would know my sister’s face to see it. Lower your hood.”

“I am unrecognisable.”

“Neither of my sisters could ever be unrecognisable to me.”

“It has been three hundred years. My life has taken its toll, and my face is not what you knew it to be.”

Zelda was tempted to step forwards and pull the hood down herself, but that would have been to go too far. Even this woman had to be permitted her bodily autonomy, otherwise she was no better than the savages she most despised. Marie’s eyes met Zelda’s; she was trying to tell her to be more gentle, but gentleness would only give this imposter a route behind the walls that kept her from harm.

Hilda stood at Zelda’s side yet again. She would have sent her sister away, but even she knew she could not do without Hilda. For many years, she had hoped that she would die first, so that she would not have to suffer such an immense loss.

The woman said, “I am not tricking you, Zelda.”

“I’m sure you can appreciate my doubts, having believed for three centuries that my sister was dead.”

“I do. But you were my big sister, Zelda. You were meant to defend me. Protect me from them.”

There was so little Zelda could say to that. Had she not tried? Had she not done her best? She was fourteen years old; her brother and her parents should have had greater expectations placed upon their shoulders. “What else could I do?” she asked quietly.

To that, the woman had no answer.

She stood up, slowly straightening herself up. “Do not be frightened,” she said. Her hands moved to her hood, and she pulled it down to reveal her face.

Pale, with short black hair, she stood before them. Zelda’s gaze was immediately consumed by the left hand side of her face. Deep cracks marred the white skin, scars from a life none of them had ever known. “What happened to you?” Hilda asked, plainly alarmed by what she saw.

“A story for another time.” The scars ran like veins over her cheeks and down her neck. “Look me in the eyes, Zelda.”

It was difficult to tear her eyes away from a story untold, written permanently in a face. But she did it. She held the woman’s stare.

A three-hundred-year-old stare. A stare she had once known. The stare that had protested her education, watched down from the heights of an apple tree, searched the night sky for stars and worlds beyond their grasp. Bright green eyes, wide and wondrous and full of life, were set upon Zelda; were they searching her soul? She suddenly felt exposed, all her secrets released, with nowhere to hide. “I can’t believe it,” whispered Zelda, but her sister’s stare had made her certain despite that. She stumbled back and leaned against the wall of the cell. “How did you survive?”

“More to the point, why didn’t you save me?” snapped Imelda. “It was always you, Zelda. I trusted you, and you didn’t help me when I needed you most.”

Imelda believed Zelda had done nothing. That she had stood by and allowed her to drown without attempting to intervene. And now she had her little sister back, only to find that the girl – now a woman – might well hate her.


	10. The Echoes

** February 1709  **

The front door of the house flew open with a crash that reached Zelda, all the way up in the bedroom. “Mother!” wailed Hilda. Zelda looked up from her book, alarmed by the sound of her sister’s frantic outburst. She closed the book and began to descend the stairs to find Hilda; Mother was already there, but she was struggling to get any sense from Hilda.

“Tell me, child!” she said earnestly. That urgency, however, only seemed to panic Hilda more, and she could barely breathe, never mind get out a coherent explanation.

Zelda stepped forward and, though a tight knot of horror was tying itself in her own stomach, said calmly to her sister, “Hilda, we cannot help if your words are unintelligible.” She grasped Hilda’s shoulder firmly, tethering her to the Earth and her family. “You must breathe before you can speak.”

It did take almost a minute, but Hilda managed to compose herself enough to say, “The mortals took ‘Melda!”

“What?” said Zelda sharply.

“We were at the sea and she was skipping stones and one went all the way across, nearly to the islands, and one of the other children told his mother and-”

“Alright,” Zelda interrupted Hilda’s ramblings as she threw on her blue cloak. “Do you know where they’ve taken her?”

“The village.”

“I’ll get Father on the way.”

“Zelda,” her mother said as she grabbed Zelda’s wrist, “no, you stay here with Hilda.”

“Hilda needs you, Mother.”

“But the mortals-”

“We will be fine,” Zelda assured her, kissing her cheek. “Father will know what to say to them. As brainwashed as they are by their False God and His Book, even they must know a reasonable explanation when they hear it.” Mother did not seem at all convinced, but she did relinquish her grasp on Zelda’s wrist and took the sobbing Hilda into her arms. “We will be back, as soon as we can.”

In the coldness of the winter air, Zelda ran towards the small cottage in which Father and Edward conducted their studies. It was almost a mile away, in the opposite direction from the village, secluded in the trees and well away from the beaten tracks. Mortals did not venture here, for the ground was treacherous and there was little to gain for the effort of the journey.

She did not knock. There wasn’t time.

Father jumped to his feet. “What is it?” he asked, as though he had been waiting for her to arrive. Edward came into the room, obviously concerned.

“Imelda,” panted Zelda; she clutched at a painful stitch in her side from the running she had done. “The mortals have detained her in the village. I suspect they believe her a witch.”

He dropped what he was doing and followed her out, Edward jogging to catch up with them. “What did they see?”

“Hilda tells me she was skipping stones. Imelda might have been a little too enthusiastic and tossed the stone further than she should have. Another child saw.”

She heard Edward groan, “Stupid girl,” as he finally fell into pace at her side.

Zelda turned her head and glared at him. “She is a child, Edward, doing what children do. You might understand them better if you paid them any attention, but of course, your nose is stuck permanently in your books!”

“You speak out of turn,” he snapped at her. “My interest in my studies does not rival my love for my sisters.”

“Then you would do well to hold a conversation with us on occasion. Perhaps then you might know us.”

“You ought to have been there with them, watching them! Where the Heaven were you?!”

“At home, reading. I thought it foolish to go to the sea while it was this cold. That is something children do.”

“And you criticise me! You live in your learning as deeply as anyone!”

“Not to the extreme that I don’t know my own family, you-” Zelda began to snarl.

It was only when Father shouted, “Stop it!” over their argument that she caught hold of herself. Though she meant every word and she did resent Edward’s detachment from them, particularly when she felt such a kindred connection with his love for his religion and his craft, it did no good to start a fight. Not when their sister was in such danger. It was a frustration like she had never known – how could he be so distant if he truly did care for them?

The village was unusually quiet. Or, at least, it was quiet until they found a throng of mortals at the parish hall. Father pushed through to the front. “I demand to know the reason you are holding my daughter,” he said. How could he be so calm?

“She has been accused of witchcraft, Mr. Spellman,” said the minister of the False Church.

“Then she shall be tried on the circuit courts, surely.”

“Not possible, I’m afraid,” said the minister. Zelda and Edward barged past the mortals to join their father; the minister wore a smirk, like he relished the power he currently found himself wielding over a mere child. “That would take months.”

“What exactly is she accused of?” asked Zelda. The minister looked down on her with contempt. Perhaps he had never had a young woman demand an answer of him before.

He stepped forward, leering unpleasantly. “In the hour we have been investigating, we have heard multiple accounts of unnatural abilities. Imelda Spellman has been observed to make a stone skim on the sea for at least fifty yards. Another person has come forward with an incident in which she observed the child in the branches of an apple tree, in which the apples were ripe before their time. The keeper saw her heal and release a snared rabbit in the woods on the south side of the river mouth, using the plants around her.”

Zelda struggled for a moment. Why come forward now? And with accusations that did no-one harm? “So that’s it? You’ve found her guilty and are prepared to put the noose around her neck, on the word of people who have held their silence until now.”

“No,” said the minister. “We shall give her a trial, as is her right.” The tone in which he said it gave Zelda no reason to trust those words, and from the look on their faces, Edward and Father felt the same way. “She is currently being searched for a Devil’s mark.”

“She has none,” snapped Zelda.

“Then the examination shall bear that out. Now, I must prepare for the witch’s trial.”

* * *

** Now **

“I tried,” whispered Zelda. “I did everything I could.”

“Then why was I washed out to sea?” Imelda said. “Why was I taken there at all, if the almighty Zelda Spellman did everything she could?”

“I was fourteen years old,” she said.

“You always knew more than the average fourteen-year-old witch, Zelda! You knew how to cast a protection spell.”

“And where would it have got us?!” she snapped. “We were being watched. You would have floated and I would have been persecuted too. The entire family would have been in danger!”

Imelda fell silent. She glanced at Hilda, who, ever the middle daughter, looked ready to jump between them. How she had loved Imelda, and how her heart had wailed for her loss. “I tried,” murmured Zelda. There was no talking to Imelda about this right now; it was obvious in the hardness of her face.

Zelda walked away. She left Imelda in the Cell, for there was nothing she could do to fix this situation.

She no longer stalked the corridors. She stumbled through them without a destination. Up and down stairs, walking these halls for what must have been hours, her footsteps echoing too loudly. Everything echoed too loudly. She never heard a thing only once – it all reverberated through her memory, for decades and centuries, and there were things she could never forget.

* * *

** February 1709 – the night before Imelda’s trial by water **

Zelda waited until the dead of the night. She was very good at sneaking out of the house by now; it was even easier than usual tonight, though, for the family was distraught.

“For Hell’s sake, Imelda!” Zelda snarled under her breath as she trampled the road into the village.

She had told Imelda as often as she had told Hilda – never allow the mortals to see them as different. It was as simple as that. They feared anyone who deviated from their ways, particularly out here, a far cry from the civility of the cities of the learned and the wise. Mortals here were so steeped in their religion, so enamoured with the False God, that their narrow minds could not cope with the idea of anything abnormal.

So when a child had run to its mother to tell her of the girl who could skip a stone so well it bounced thirteen times on the water, there had been an outcry. Hilda had run home, screaming that they had taken Imelda from her, that she was to be held in the village and tried.

Imelda probably had employed a little magic in her stone skipping, and she had been foolish to do so, but she was only a child, who believed herself alone with her sister. But to do this over something as harmless as a skipping stone, and to come forward with further accusations against a child…was it any wonder mortals were treated with such contempt by the average witch? Zelda sincerely doubted Imelda had managed to heal a rabbit; it was more likely she released it before it was grievously injured. The apple tree, however, she wouldn’t have put past her. Even at her young age and with her minimal powers, she knew how to manipulate the water and the fruits of this Earth. It was unfortunate that a mortal had noticed.

The village was a couple of miles away, and at a steady march, Zelda reached the parish hall, where she knew her youngest sibling was being held.

Imelda was so young. A child. What danger did they think a _child_ could possibly bring them?

There was nobody here. She was not foolish enough to believe Imelda had been left alone, however, and so decided to enter without magic; the knocked on the door until a young mortal man came to answer. Before he could speak, Zelda said firmly, “I wish to see my sister.”

The man, barely older than her, stepped aside and bade her enter. “She has been crying for you,” he said gently, “but you must tell nobody I allowed you to see her.”

Zelda gazed at him for a moment; he seemed kinder than the people whose orders he executed, but he did follow them and therefore could never be trusted. She trailed close behind him as he led her to a small windowless room, lit only by the boy’s oil lamp. “You are keeping her here?” she said, disgusted when she found her sister sleeping crouched in the corner of the room.

“I have no say in this, Miss,” he said. “Be quick, and be quiet. The minister sleeps in the quarters to the west of the hall.”

She nodded and bent down to rouse Imelda. “Wake up, ‘Melda,” she whispered, shaking her arm. “It’s me.”

“Zelda?” she asked groggily. “Zelda, take me home, please. I did nothing to-”

“Imelda, listen to me,” Zelda interrupted her urgently. “Did they find a mark on you?”

“No,” she replied. “I don’t think they did.”

She didn’t dare say anything more on that subject, as her visit was supervised by a mortal who would report anything they said. “Alright. Do you understand what they will do to you tomorrow morning?”

Imelda shook her head.

“They will throw you in the sea. You probably will sink because nobody has yet taught you to swim, but you must not panic. They will have you tethered and will pull you back in.”

The poor girl looked petrified. “Zelds, what if-”

“No what ifs,” Zelda said quickly. She could not bear to think of all the ways this could end. “I love you. Mother and Father love you. Hilda and Edward love you. For now, that is all you must think of.” She leaned down and kissed Imelda’s head; she wanted to put a protective spell over her, but knew she could not chance being caught by their supervisor. “We will be waiting on the shore for you.”

* * *

** Now **

“Auntie Zee?”

The voice, her nephew’s voice, caught Zelda and rooted her back to solid ground. She looked around and realised she had wandered into the entrance hall of the Academy. “Ambrose,” she said. The airiness of her tone scared even her. Her feet took her in circles, like they simply could not be still, and once more there was no floor beneath her.

“Auntie, stop,” he implored her. “Please. You’re making me dizzy.”

She stopped. Marie came into the hall and reached her hand out to Zelda, but she could not take it. How could she expect Marie to remain here to endure this? It would be ugly. Everything about this life was ugly, wasn’t it? Just as she was rid of one catastrophe, along came another. “Zelda,” said Marie, “do not blame yourself. You could never have known.”

But that was not true, was it? She could have looked closer at the evidence. Water – of course Imelda would use water. She had an affinity for it even as a child, despite her inability to swim properly. If anyone would want Zelda to know what it was to drown, it would have been Imelda. She had refused to change her mind as the evidence had changed.

To say this to them, though…Zelda could not do that.

Indeed, she felt she could not speak at all. Her words had all dried up. Conversation was useless. A tool for diversion and reassigning blame. Where did it ever get her?

She thought she knew now why Edward did not involve himself in his sisters’ lives when they were very young. Love was a distraction. It was a risk, and what came in love would always leave in pain. She was just like him now; she loved, and she knew Edward had done too, but she could not allow it to rule her. It would only destroy her.

Edward had evolved from that young man who took himself out of his family to a High Priest who had immersed himself in his family. He had become Zelda’s guiding light in the darkness, teaching her to balance her mind with her heart, just as he had learned to in the New World. Without him, how could she navigate this?

What was it he had told her on that voyage? _“So fixated are you upon becoming a learned witch that you go blind to your own nature. One day, Zelda, you will understand what I mean.”_

He had learned that for himself; he must have known that Zelda would one day happen upon the realisation, too. Her nature was to love. She could not change it, for all she had tried. Ignoring it had only worsened the consequences.

The only way to survive was to learn to live with herself, love and all. If she did not love, she did not live, for it was not in her nature.

Zelda reached out and took Marie’s outstretched hand, and offered her other one to Ambrose. He took it and held on tightly. “We will find a way through this,” he said. “We are Spellmans, after all.”

“You forget that being Spellmans is what got us into this mess,” she retorted.

“I’m surprised you haven’t noticed a pattern yet. Could be worse though,” Ambrose grinned. “You could be Sabrina Spellman. She’s never out of trouble, that one.”

Zelda allowed Ambrose the ghost of a smile. “I’m beginning to wonder if she gets that from me.”


End file.
